


Ariel Was Full Of Bullshit

by go_Jean_or_go_home



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Human Armin, Human Eren, Human Marco, M/M, Mako Shark Jean, Mershark, Mershark Jean, Shark Week (2017), Sharks, mermaid, mermaid au, mermaid jean, merman, merman Jean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2018-11-18 00:38:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11280120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/go_Jean_or_go_home/pseuds/go_Jean_or_go_home
Summary: Ariel was a fictional, petite little mermaid who fell in love with a human prince and had a magical adventure with a happy, lovey-dovey ending. Jean on the other fin, was nothing like Ariel.For one thing, Ariel wasn’t a mershark. Ariel also wasn’t grouchy most of the time. Ariel didn’t sell the human trinkets she found just because she was a shitty hunter and needed an easier way to obtain food.And she most definitely did not get chased down by a pod of orcas and then at the last minute, jump into a human boat to escape said orcas.(Written in honor of shark week, which starts today, and to raise awareness in a fun, fanfictional way!)





	1. Ariel Was Full Of Bullshit

_ ‘Click!’ _

 

All the lights in the large auditorium shut off, casting the college classroom into darkness. The only light in the room came from the two EXIT signs above both doors, and the illuminated projection board in the front, where a powerpoint presentation had just finished loading. 

 

The professor that had turned off the lights walked up the steps and back to their desk, as three college students came in front of the board, all dressed just as formally as the rest of the people in the room. The blonde one with his long hair tied back in a ponytail spoke first. 

 

“My name is Armin Arlert, and these are my partners Eren Jaeger and Marco Bodt.” He gestured to the other two students standing beside him. “We’ve chosen sharks to be the main focus of our presentation for this competition.”

 

The clutch of professors, both male and female, nodded for them to get on with it. Some scrawled down the trio’s names onto clipboards. 

 

Eren took a seat at the teacher’s desk, the artificial glow of the computer lighting up his face. He dragged the mouse over the ‘Next’ icon. The next slide appeared on the large projection board, featuring an image of a shark and a few small paragraphs of information. 

 

Armin and Marco walked to either side of the projection, and Armin cleared his throat, preparing to speak loudly so that his voice would travel all the way to the judges in the back of the room. “Sharks are widely known creatures. And like most living things, they are essential to the ecosystems they inhabit.” His voice quivered a little, but he showed no sign of stopping.

 

“They are important because they are predators, and therefore make sure the prey of their habitats don’t over populate. They keep the balance in their ecosystems. Without sharks, all the Earth’s oceans would be sent into total anarchy and shock, since they’ve been such an essential, balancing part of aquatic biomes for roughly 400 million years. That’s right, sharks were around even before the dinosaurs!” The professors scribbled down notes as Armin kept talking. 

 

“Since they are so important, it has become a rather concerning fact that shark populations are decreasing drastically. In fact,” Armin pointed at some numbers on the board. “It is estimated that nearly 100 million sharks are killed every year.” A few murmurs flickered through the audience, pencils and pens scratched across paper.

 

“So,” The blonde continued. “Why exactly  _ are _ people killing so many sharks? Marco here will tell you more about that.” Armin stepped to the side as said freckled man walked up to the projection board. Eren clicked for the slide to change.

 

“People kill sharks for many reasons.” Marco began, his voice ringing clear through the air. “All of those reasons stem from two things: fear and ignorance.” 

 

Marco poked his finger at the board, which now showed an image of the shark from  _ Jaws _ , and an image of lightning. “Fear, because many movies and other forms of media portray sharks as bloodthirsty, toothy monsters. And while sharks may look a little scary, in comparison to the 100 million sharks we humans kill each year, sharks only kill around 37 humans each year. You’re more likely to get stuck by lightning than killed by a shark.”

 

A few of the professors let out hums of acknowledgement, letting the information sink in. Someone dropped their phone in one of the middle rows, and a professor sitting next to them picked it up for them. 

 

After waiting to ensure everyone was attentive again, Marco continued. “On top of that, humans aren’t even part of a shark’s normal diet. Remember, they’ve been on the planet much longer than we have, and we don’t live in the oceans, so there is no reason for a shark to have evolved to deliberately seek human meat!” 

 

Marco paused and took a breath. “In fact, most of the time, sharks only attack humans because they were provoked, or they mistook a human for a seal or another oceanic creature.

 

“The other reason humans kill sharks, is out of ignorance, and by ignorance, I mean greed and untrue rumors.”

 

Marco glanced at Eren, who clicked to the next slide, which featured some images about shark finning with captions. “Greed, because sharks are hunted for their leathery skin, internal organs, and fins to make shark fin soup. Sharks are expensive, both when sold, and when you’re caught selling them, because fortunately, shark killing is illegal in some places. It's even banned right here in America.

 

“However, shark finning is an incredibly inhumane practice. In order to obtain the fins and only the fins, some people cut them off while the shark is still alive, and let it back into the ocean. Since the shark can no longer swim properly, it sinks to the bottom of the ocean and dies of either suffocation, or is eaten by other predators. It’s a slow and painful death, one of which no shark deserves.”

 

The freckled man stopped to take another breather, and calm down his shaky nerves. “And now, my partner Eren will elaborate more on the false rumors about sharks.”

 

Marco and Eren switched places so that Marco was now seated at the teacher’s desk, and Eren was standing by the side of the projection. Armin shifted his weight onto the other foot and scratched his nose. Marco clicked the mouse this time, and the slide changed to show a bullet point list of untrue shark myths.

 

Eren adjusted his tie before speaking, shouting a bit louder than necessary and making everyone in the room wince. “Some incorrect rumors about sharks include them being man-hungry beasts- which Marco already covered- sharks attacking humans often- which Marco also went over- sharks having no preda- actually, Marco went over a lot of these… “ Eren trailed off, looking up at the slide projection nervously.

 

Armin and Marco glanced at each other with panicked expressions, internally urging Eren to just  _ wing it _ , and keep going. Armin bit a fingernail as Eren spun back around to face the front of the room. “Cancer!” He shouted.

 

Looks of concerned shock were openly shown across all of the professor's faces, as Eren coughed apologetically and tried to make up for his oddly-worded outburst. “Uh, cancer is- I mean, I’m sorry.” Eren sighed and started over. “A common but untrue rumor about sharks is their immunity to cancer.”

 

All the professors relaxed in their seats once again, letting out little “oh”s. 

 

Armin and Marco sighed in relief as well, trying to telepathically project encouragement upon their friend. Eren licked his lips and continued, trying to regain proper control of the situation. “This rumor is false, because while sharks  _ do _ have a remarkably strong immune system, they are not immune to cancer, but in fact, susceptible to it. It’s rare, but it’s recorded that sharks  _ can _ get cancer.”

 

The professors resumed their note-taking. 

 

Eren talked on with newfound confidence. “Some believe shark cartilage can be ground and taken to prevent cancer in humans, but this has been proven to be wildly incorrect, and even harmful to people.” Some more murmurs weaved about the room. 

 

“Now, with all these rumors debunked, sharks are still being killed as we speak. So, what can you do to stop this from happening? Well, you can  _ not _ eat sharks, for one thing, you can stay away from restaurants and eateries that serve shark, you can sign petitions, spread information, and there are many activities too! You can dive to help sharks, speak out and defend sharks, make sure you’re not buying any food or cosmetics with shark ingredients- because shark liver oil  _ is _ used in makeup! So be aware!” Eren shouted, his voice echoing around the large room.

 

Marco clicked to the end slide, then got up as he and Armin joined on either side of Armin. Eren spoke the last line. “Sharks are amazing, and important creatures, so you can help protect them starting today. Thank you.” With that, all three of them bowed, and the room erupted into respectful applause. 

 

The three men beamed as they straightened back up. The same professor from before came back down the stairs and flicked on the lights again. Marco, Armin, and Eren blinked in the sudden brightness. 

 

Several professors had their hands raised, so Armin pointed at a man up front. “Yes, you.”

 

“Hello boys,” The man said. “First off, I’d just like to say you did a great job on your presentation,”, “Thank you, sir.” Armin beamed. The man continued, “Now, my question is: why did you three choose to focus on sharks?”

 

Armin, Marco, and Eren grinned at each other before Eren answered. “It’s a little funny, actually. See, first, Armin-” He patted Armin’s shoulder, “-wanted to do something involving the ocean and Marco didn’t mind either way. Now, you see, my mom died from breast cancer-” Some sympathetic noises came from the professors. “-and I’d heard somewhere that sharks were immune to cancer, so I wanted to research more on that to see if I could help any other people with cancer.”

 

The man cut in. “But then you learned that wasn’t true- the immunity I mean.”

 

“Yeah.” Eren replied. “But at that point we’d gotten too much research done to just  _ ditch it _ , so we went the rest of the way, and now we’re actually really interested in helping sharks.”

 

Marco and Armin let out small, affirmative noises. Marco pointed to a woman in the very back of the room who had her hand raised. “You, in the back.”

 

"Do any of you hope to go on preserving sharks?” The woman asked.

 

The three looked at each other again, then Marco spoke for them. “We haven’t thought that far ahead life-time-wise, but all of us definitely hope to see change in the numbers for sharks.”

 

Another raised hand got the spotlight. “If you were to win this competition, what would you hope to do with the money?”

 

Armin answered this time, smiling sheepishly. “We actually did talk a lot about that,” The professors laughed. “We hope to spend the time down by the Bahamas, or more specifically, the Bermuda Triangle, to study the ocean life there. Sharks are amazing, but so are colorful tropical fish.”

 

The professor nodded. “Very true, young man.”

 

A few more questions were asked and answered, then Marco, Armin, and Eren were guided out of the room and someone went to close out of their presentation. 

 

Upon entering the hallway, the next group of students gave the boys congratulatory back pats, and the trio responded by wishing them good luck as the other students were brought into the room, then the door closed behind them. 

 

The second the door closed, Eren jumped onto his two partners and whisper-shouted whoops of triumph while giving them noogies. Armin and Marco gave unconvincing cries of protest, smiling as they struggled to get their energetic third party off them. 

 

Armin, Marco, and Eren high-fived and chest-bumped all the way up the flight of stairs, through a hallway, and out into the main lobby, where many other college students were sitting against walls and waiting for their turn. When the three of them came into the entrance hall, they immediately got bombarded by fellow students, asking questions about how their presentation went. 

 

Armin and Marco happily answered, while Eren drawled on the fact that he “didn’t mess up in the slightest”, earning an eye roll from Marco and the truth being revealed by a smirking Armin.

 

You see, the Massachusetts State Science Competition, or MSSC, was a state-wide competition for college and highschool students to professionally present their own science projects. 

 

How the competition worked, was the year’s theme was announced online (this year’s theme had been Biology, or the study of living things) and then the students went off in groups or solo, chose topics that fit in the theme, and made a project on it. Students could make powerpoint presentations like Marco, Armin, and Eren had, they could make documentaries, or they could make giant poster boards. 

 

Neither Marco, Armin, or Eren were very artsy people, so poster board had been out. Marco and Armin had wanted to make a documentary, since neither of them were very good at public speaking and Armin had the tech for it anyway, but Eren had insisted that people could listen better if they could see your face, and he wasn’t backing down with his notion, so powerpoint it was.

 

The MSSC had winners as well. First, second, and third place for poster boards, first, second, and third place for documentaries, and first, second, and third place for powerpoint presentations.

 

The 9 winners were announced at the end of the day, once all projects had been seen and judged.

 

So now, Marco, Armin, and Eren just had to sit with everyone else, and wait. The hot, June air outside wasn’t making the room very comfortable, but this competition being the last big college assignment of the year did. 

 

X

 

“... and the first place winner for the poster board category is the Benefits of Plant Walls group!”

 

The rows of students and professors clapped as four beaming girls rushed down the stairs to pick up their scholarship. 

 

The announcer continued into the last category of winners. “The third place winner for the power point category is Genius Genetics!”

 

Clapping erupted and a pudgy boy collected his reward of money. Armin, Marco, and Eren shared anxious looks, wondering if they even standed a chance at the scholarship.

 

“The second place winner for the power point category is Proper Population Control!”

 

A tall girl and her short, shy-looking male partner stumbled down the stairs and got their sum. Armin and Eren slumped down in their seats, Marco leaned his chin in his palm, still hopeful.

 

“And finally, the first place winner for the power point category is… can I get a drumroll, please?” The professor playfully asked.

 

The rows of grinning students began rhythmically rapping hands and pencils against the desks. Marco, Armin, and Eren joined in, feeling their mood shifting. Even if they didn’t win, they still did a good job.

 

“Alright, the first place winner iiiiiis….” The drumming stopped. “Protect the Sharks!”

 

Students clapped all around the three boys, as they at in shock. Eren was the first to react, standing up and pumping his fists in the air shouting, “Yeah!” then ran down the steps with his two partners in tow. 

 

The professor gave the three each a pat on the shoulder, giving Eren the slip of paper that sealed the future of their summer. “Good work, gentlemen.”

 

The three beaming boys returned to their seats, as people gave them congratulatory high-fives and shouts. 

 

The professor held his arms in the air. “And thank you, everyone, for coming to this year’s Massachusetts State Science Competition!”

 

X

 

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil’s Triangle, lies between Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and Florida. There are countless reports of ships and planes being lost inside the triangle’s mysterious waters. 

 

Deep under the waters of the North part of the triangle, hull wrecks are scattered over the jagged ocean floor. Rusted scraps of metal lay in the brown sand, green plants sway with the current, and small fish skitter in between the skeletons of planes and ships. It’s practically a graveyard.

 

A long, sleek figure glides through the dark waters, sharp tail flicking to propel him over the sunken structures. The water sweeps his ashen hair back, and keen honey-colored eyes search the area for possible prey. Jean was hunting.

 

He had just come all the way back from the North Sea in Europe, having swam roughly 3,900 miles in 105 days. He still had a little ways to go before he got the the Bahamas. Naturally, he was worn and hungry. 

 

What was Jean doing in the North Sea, you ask? Finding himself a cheap way to get food, that’s what. 

 

Humans drop thousands of useless knick-knacks in the ocean, and some merfolk who study humans- Homosapienologists- pay a handsome sum for scavengers like Jean to collect those knick-knacks. 

 

Traveling around the Atlantic, he’d found dolls, bracelets with little charms on them, disintegrated remains of books, forks, and many other trinkets. While in the North Sea, he’d seen his sort-of friends Hitch and Marlowe again, who were also scavengers. 

 

The three of them had caught up while trading their loot in for food. You see, certain fish populations were getting harder and harder to find, and merfolk always have to compete with the real natural predators like sharks, whales, and octopuses. When you’re an awkward freak of nature like the three of them, a cross between a land mammal- human- and ocean creature- shark- you’re always second best to actual humans and actual sharks. 

 

Scrawny mersharks like the three of them were no exception to that rule, and so they’d found alternative means of survival, i.e., selling human items in exchange for food they could never hope to catch on their own. 

 

After selling all of his collected loot and receiving a nice supply of food, Jean had bid the two sand sharks goodbye, then traveled all the way back across the Atlantic to where he was now. And he was hungry again. Because he’d scarfed down everything on his travel back. Life was great.

 

The mako shark’s tail swished angrily in the water. Jean was getting frustrated, having not found any prey aside from minos, and those were smaller than his pinkie finger. His stomach growled, and he whimpered pitifully. Maybe he should look inside the plane wrecks?

 

Jean drifted over the capsized giants, eyes scanning for a window or enterance of some sort. Peeling paint gave away the age of this particular plane, whose faded name had been covered by barnacles.

 

Jean remembered how his mother had never let him go hungry. Back when he was a pup and still young enough to stay with her, Jean’s mom had even given him her food if there wasn’t enough. Being her only son, she gave him her all. It had hurt when he came of age and had to leave his mother’s side, but that’s just how it worked. 

 

As he peered through the shattered window in the front of the plane, Jean wished his mother was here right now to feed him and hold him and generally make him feel better. He shook his head to clear the mushy thoughts and swam through the broken window into the dark plane.  

 

Crabs scurried under the plane seats when Jean swam by. He knew planes were chock full of valuable human things, but he could come back to this later, after he’d eaten.

 

Check the upper compartment? Nothing. Check under the seats? Just crabs. Jean grumbled when he got to the place where the plane had been ripped in half, and exited back out into the open water. Still no food.

 

Suddenly, Jean caught a glint out of the corner of his eye. Turning back to face the plane, he saw something shiny moving on top of it. 

 

_ ‘Finally’ _ He thought. Grinning, Jean circled underneath his prey, making sure to stay out of it’s line of sight. He was fast, but the element of surprise make the catch much easier. 

 

Once he got close enough, Jean shot up and chomped down on the glinting creature, grabbing it with his hands, then viciously began gnawing at it, but the creature wouldn’t budge in his mouth. Come to think of it, the creature felt much harder than flesh.

 

Wait, what kind of fish was this?

 

Jean took the thing from his mouth, then to his frustration, discovered his ‘prey’ was merely a piece of scrap metal. Snarling, Jean trashed the material grumpily. He wiggled his upper tooth with his tongue, and it came out.

 

Sucking in his cheek, Jean pays the tooth no mind, knowing a new one will grow back in a few days. 

 

He moodily resumes his hunting. 

 

Jean knows shark populations are dwindling, and merfolk populations aren’t exactly doing any better. As long as he survives, he doesn’t waste time worrying about that matter, but at the same time, he’s grown tired of the ‘just survive’ routine. He wants something to break this eat-sleep-breathe cycle, but Jean knows that’s just not something that happens to people like him.

 

Jean breathes in to calm his raging thoughts. The blueish gills on the sides of his torso flutter. Just as Jean swims around a sideways sail boat, he spots a school of presumably tuna through the hazy waters. Smirking, he goes to hunt after some  _ real _ food.

 

X

 

College had let out almost 20 days ago, and Marco, Eren, and Armin are already in the Bahamas. Specifically, they’re on San Salvador Island, and have settled into their hotel. They just rented a cabin cruiser, and the owner of the boat, a short dark-skinned woman, is enthusiastically giving them the rules about sailing in her baby as the four of them walk down the dock toward it.

 

“Y’all stayin’ here fo’ a week, that right?” An affirmative nod from the three of them. “Well then, y’all can stay out on the water fo’ as long as you wish. Y’all have the option o’ sleepin’ in the hotel o’ boat, ‘cus my boat provides livin’ necessities and is freshly stocked with food.” 

 

With the smell of salt in the air and seagulls squawking above, the woman crosses the walkway linking the dock and the boat and Eren, Marco, and Armin follow suit in their T-shirts and cargo shorts. The ocean lapped at the sides of the vessel below.

 

“The boat also has a workin’ phone, fishin’ tools, and divin’ equipment. Though I warn y’all, don’t go too far out ta sea. Y’all ‘re also limited to which species ya can catch and kill. Anythin’ not on this here list  _ must _ be thrown back.” With that, she hands them a piece of wrinkled and water-worn paper, which Marco takes and scans over.

 

The woman proceeds to give the three a small tour of S.S. Marleen, which boasts a cabin under the deck where the three of them have the option of sleeping in, accompanied by a small bathroom. It wasn’t a wedding yacht, but it wasn’t a little sail boat either. It was just enough for the three of them to get along comfortably and study all the marine life their hearts desired.

 

Marco, Eren, and Armin collectively decided to take her out for a spin as soon as possible. Their friendly tour guide was delighted, and since the cruiser was more or less stocked with everything they’d need for one night out on the water, they bid the woman a grateful, temporary goodbye, and immediately sailed off into the waves.

 

With Marco at the wheel, Eren sticking his hand out to the side, and Armin peering eagerly out at the crystal blue waters, it didn’t take long before the telltale colors of tropical fish began darting by underneath. 

 

“Look! Look!” Armin cried, as a slightly ocean-splattered Eren stumbled over to his side of the boat. Below the waves, darker sections on the seafloor indicated alcoves of coral, where life was surely bustling.

 

The farther out they went, the harder it became to see the bottom, so eventually Marco slowed the boat down to a stop. He suggests, “How about we give that diving gear a try?” 

 

After receiving eager nods from Armin and Eren, Marco ducks underneath the lower deck of the boat to dig out the equipment. Eren turns back to dragging his hands around in the water, as Armin gazes dreamily at the rippling blue waves.

 

X

 

Jean’s tooth has completely grown back, as per usual, and he’s now finally in the Bahamas. The warm water is both a compliment and a temporary distraction to his hunger. Though, only for a few fleeting moments.

 

Jean sighs and rubs a hand over his thin belly to settle it’s rumbles. Having only succeeded in catching the bare minimum, he’s on the thin side for a predator. Hitch and Marlowe are as well. Most scavengers are, as a matter of fact. 

 

Jean’s currently approaching a coral reef. The pinks, oranges, and yellows remind him there’s always something to eat in these habitats since they’re always thriving with life.

 

Angel sharks shuffle through the light brown sand below, sea slugs creep over yellow and purple sponges, and sea snakes weave through tunnels in chase of small prey. 

As he floats over the colorful rocks and plants, smaller fish skirt in and out of the crevices, but Jean is looking for bigger, more filling fish. He favors boney fish such as mackerel and tuna.

 

Soon, Jean sees a large school of grey-blue striped fish clouding around a large cliff of coral. He instantly recognizes them as Bonitos. Jean grins to himself and closes in silently. Repeating his element-of-surprise hunting tactic, he swims underneath the school, and targets one of the plumper ones. It won’t fill him, but it will have to satisfy for now, and maybe he’ll catch a second one before the entire school swims away.

 

The second he gets close to his chosen Bonito, he shoots up and tears the fins off, rendering the fish immobile as the rest of the school burst away in panicked surprise, and hurriedly scatter off into the blue. Jean catches his slowly sinking meal before another fish can come along and take it, and quickly sinks his teeth into it, getting a small cloud of warm blood around him in the water.

 

Jean is still running his tongue over his teeth when he drops the bones of the Bonito. He gives himself a mental pat on the back for his rare successful hunt. Another day he gets to live. 

 

When he looks up, he freezes at the sight of a large black and white body slowly moving around him through the hazy ocean waters. Based on it’s sheer size, it has to be a whale or another, bigger shark. It’s clearly circling him, so Jean tries to keep his cool and makes sure his back is never facing it. Internally, he’s panicking. This could be bad.

 

The creature emits a high pitched squeal as it continues circling.

 

_ ‘That definitely sounds like a whale!’ _ Jean’s mind shrieks.

 

Jean senses other presences behind him even before he hears the moans and clicks respond to the whale he’s facing.

 

Shit. He’s surrounded by  _ Orcas _ . Orcas  _ eat _ mersharks like him. 

 

Jean’s thoughts race as the pod of killer whales keep moving around him. He knows he’s faster than them, but they have numbers, and Orcas are smart. They’ll probably get him to swim right into a corner.

 

He needs to get out,  _ now _ . He is  _ not _ going to die today!

 

Suddenly, Jean sees one out of his peripheral vision lunge and surge forward with it’s mouth wide open, showcasing the small, pointy teeth.

 

Responding on instinct, Jean rushes underneath the whale, escaping the circle of Orcas, and keeps swimming as fast as he can away from the pod.

 

_ ‘Breathe, breathe, breathe, it’s okay Jean, you’ve got this.’ _ He tells himself, teeth clenched in concentration.

 

He hears the Orcas squeaking and clicking to each other as they give chase behind him. He knows they’re in hot pursuit of him now.

 

_ ‘Spawn, why are they going after me!?’ _ Jean screams internally, dodging around a pillar of coral.  _ ‘I’m more bone than meat!’ _

 

Still, the whales don’t let up, as some of them spread out through the water. He swims as fast as he can, ducking under archways of rock, sweeping plantlife when he goes by, and generally staying close to the coral on the ground in the hopes that they’ll lose sight of him. They don’t.

 

Jean looks ahead of him, and confirms miserably that a few of the Orcas have gone around and are now ahead of him, making a dead end for him. He’s as good as trapped again. This is it. This is how he dies. Eaten by Orcas. He doesn’t even get to say goodbye to his mom or Hitch or Marlowe and  _ god why couldn’t they have gone after someone else- _

 

Suddenly, a dark shape floating on the water’s surface above catches Jean’s view. Looking up, he easily recognizes it as a small, human boat. If he can jump onto it, he might live. But there was no telling what the humans that were undoubtedly on that boat might do. 

 

Jean knew that humans and merfolk didn’t make contact. Those who thought they could befriend the land creatures always ended up dead, or in some other state that was arguably worse.

 

Jean’s choices were to either jump into the boat and face the risks, or stay down and get shredded by a pod of Orcas. He was approaching the boat fast, so he needed to make his decision  _ now _ . 

 

Might as well take the slim chance of living.

 

Cursing to himself, Jean launched upwards, to the shock of the Orcas behind him. The shadow of the boat was approaching fast, and before one of the whales could chomp down on his tail, Jean breached the water's surface, and for a few seconds, is suspended in broad daylight. 

 

Everything happened in slow motion. Jean was resenting the weird, warm, light feel of air, and the pull of gravity as he started to fall towards the boat. He saw two humans on board. One with brown hair was leaning off the opposite side, while one with a blonde ponytail made shocked eye contact with Jean.

 

The slow motion was broken as Jean came hurtling into the speechless blonde, knocking them both down onto the deck. Jean scrambled off the  _ human _ in disgust and fear, growling as the brown haired one turned around to see what the commotion was.

 

His bright green eyes widened when he saw his companion, on the floor, staring in shock at a… at a… 

 

“Hoooooooooly shit Armin whatthefuck is that thing!?” Eren shrieked as he grabbed his friend and dragged him away from the creature, which had it’s teeth bared in a defensive snarl.

 

Armin struggled out of Eren's grasp. “I-I don’t know! It- It jumped out of the water and knocked into me!”

 

Hearing that, Eren growled right back at the creature, who slapped it’s  _ shark tail _ against the deck of the boat in a defensive threat to  _ stay away _ .

 

Jean and the brown-haired human refuse to look away from each other as the blonde one starts rambling and  _ he did not think this through what is going on _ but then a  _ third human _ with freckles scrambles up from below deck and stops to gape at the current scene.

 

Jean’s eyes dart between the three of them as his growling kicks up to a higher octave, as the freckled human shakily asks the other two what happened with out taking it’s eyes off Jean. 

 

“It jumped out of the water and into me, and just  _ look at it _ !” The blonde one cries. “I have never seen- this is so- oh my  _ god! _ ” 

 

The brown haired one doesn’t look as fascinated as his friend. “What  _ is _ it?” 

 

The freckled one steps forward slowly, and Jean’s tail slapping picks up. “What  _ are _ you?”

 

“ -human upper body but a shark lower half and it has  _ gills _ and-”, Jean’s getting frantic as the freckled one keeps getting closer.

 

“Marco, don’t do tha-”, “We won’t hurt you, okay?”

 

He finally begins to reach his hand out, and in fear, Jean lunges forward and snaps at the hand, which is quickly drawn back. “Woah!”

 

“Marco, get away! We  _ need _ to get rid of this thing!”

 

“ -normal shark behavior just means it’s scared and- “

 

“No, Eren, just  _ look _ at it!”

 

Shouting, shouting, shouting, and more shouting clouds Jean’s senses and he’s getting more and more freaked out, so what happens next is mostly a blur to his memory. He thinks he may have tried to bite again, but couldn’t get far because moving out of water was way harder than he thought. There was a lot of shouting. A lot of movement. One of them ended up struggling to pin him down while he thrashed violently, tail whipping against the deck. Then black, quiet. 

 

X

 

All three of them pant heavily as they stand on the boat. Their breathing sounds loud after all the commotion that just went down. Marco is sitting over the waist of the thing that had jumped into their boat. Said thing lays unconscious on the deck, since being knocked out to stop it’s tantrum.

 

“H-holy fuck…” Eren shakily whispers.

 

Armin is the first to cry out the obvious. “We just caught a  _ mermaid _ !!”


	2. Jaws Was Also Full Of Bullshit

“We just caught a  _ mermaid _ !!” Armin shrieked. Eren’s hands were still gripping his shoulders as all three of them stared at said mermaid, who laid unconscious on the deck, pinned down by Marco who was panting lightly. 

 

“Oh… oh my god…” Marco scurried off the soaking wet creature with wide eyes. “T-that’s… that’s a…”

 

“ _ Mermaid _ !!” Armin repeated. 

 

Eren broke the shaky silence by shouting, “Mermaid’s don’t exist! This is probably just- just…” He grit his teeth in frustration. Mermaids weren’t supposed to exist. Mermaids were supposed to be myths, yet here was a fucking human-on-top-shark-on-bottom mermaid laying smack in the middle of their boat, unconscious in a puddle of ocean water. By the laws of science,  _ mermaids _ were not supposed to be possible. “This isn’t possible!” Though he knew there was no way to deny the creature on deck.

 

“That is most definitely a mermaid, Eren.” Armin pried Eren’s hands off his shoulders and slowly crouched by the mermaid’s body. “Look at it… fascinating…” He whispered, as if talking too loud would disrupt it. 

 

Marco crept over to Armin’s side and observed it as well; this mermaid truly was fascinating. Pale human skin- shiny with water- stretched over it’s thin human half. Blueish gills clung wetly to protruding ribs, which rose and fell softly as it breathed. Thin shoulders and skinny arms lead down to boney hands with long nails. 

 

It’s pinkish human skin faded into dark blue and white at the waist, and a sharp dorsal fin was where the human butt would be. Pectoral fins, pelvic fins, and a caudal fin made it plainly obvious this was a shark tail. Marco noticed a pair of claspers on the white underside. “Male… it’s-  _ he’s _ a male.”

 

Neither Marco or Armin dared to touch the creature, just settling for eye-roving as Eren reluctantly shuffled towards the mermaid and crouched down on the other side of it. He looked at his friends, then down at the mermaid (Merman? Mershark?).

 

It’s-  _ his _ face was so human, Eren felt a shiver run down his spine. He had a sharp chin, sharp nose, sharp eyebrows, and probably sharp eyes which were covered by pale eyelids. His ears simply looked like smaller fins, and Eren could see pointy teeth inside his open mouth, but his hair was what spiked Eren the most. This mysterious mythical creature was sporting an undercut you’d find on any modern hipster, darker on the shaved part and ashen blonde on the top. 

 

Eren’s last shreds of doubt evaporated as he looked up at Marco and Armin, who were practically vibrating with excitement. This was  _ definitely _ a mermaid. 

 

Unable to contain himself anymore, Armin broke the silence. “Isn’t this incredible? There’s so much potential to learn from him, and this is the kind of thing you see on gossipy websites and scoff at but look at this!! He’s a real mermaid and oh- why did we have to knock him out-” 

 

“Marco knocked him out to stop him from freaking out.” Eren interrupted. “I’d imagine he’s not gonna be much better when he wakes up.”

 

Marco spoke up. “We should probably get him into water, if he dehydrates we don’t know if he’d survive or not.”

 

“The bathroom below deck?” Armin suggested. Marco nodded. “I could… I’ll carry him.”

 

Eren and Armin watched as Marco shyly reached out and gently pushed the mermaid’s shoulder to flip it onto it’s back. “What’s he feel like?” Eren asked.

 

“Just like wet human skin.” 

 

Marco hooked his arms under the mermaid’s back and just behind his dorsal fin, and hoisted him up. “Wow… he’s light.” The mermaid’s head limply flopped against Marco’s chest, and Marco could feel the wet hair soaking through the fabric of his shirt.

 

“Well, he does look pretty scrawny.” Eren commented, following behind Marco as he carried the mermaid down the steps to the lower deck. Armin opened the bathroom door for Marco as he set the mermaid in the small bathtub. 

 

“I wonder why he’s so thin…” Armin thought aloud. Marco turned the nozzle and lukewarm water slowly began filling up the tub. “I mean, it would make sense if he’s suffering competition from other species. He’s a missing link in evolution… a cross between a fish and a mammal!”

 

Marco closed the lid on the toilet and sat down, Armin leaned his forearms on the side of the tub to watch their new guest, and Eren stood behind Armin, peering in at the unconscious mermaid. 

 

“Do you think he’s the only one?” Eren inquired. 

 

Armin and Marco shook their heads. “He’s got a belly button,” Marco pointed out. “He was born.”

 

Eren snorted and Armin looked up at him. “What?”

 

“Nothin’,” He grinned. “It’s just sharkboy's an outie.” 

 

Marco rolled his eyes. “Well I’d imagine so, considering the lack of hospitals in the ocean to cut the umbilical cord.” 

 

They went quiet again as the noise of running water filled the small bathroom. Marco had rested the mermaid on his side, so as to not crush the dorsal fin on his backside. All of them thought about the magnitude of their find. Something like this would have every scientist and news anchor around the world at their doorstep, which would no doubt cause problems.

 

“We shouldn’t tell anyone about this.” Armin proposed quietly. 

 

“But what do we do when he wakes up?” Eren asked. “He’s not just gonna stay and hang around a bunch of humans he’s probably never seen before. Do you think this is his first time seeing humans?”

 

They pondered that, then Marco answered. “Maybe. He was really defensive, so he was probably feeling threatened.”

 

“ _ He _ was feeling threatened?” Eren quipped indignantly, glaring at the unconscious sharkboy in the bath. “I hear a shout and look over to see Armin on the ground with a human-shark thing on top of him and  _ he _ felt threatened?”

 

“There were three of us and one of him, and we had the movement advantage! We locked eyes for a moment before he fell into me, Eren! He didn’t mean for it to happen! He was just jumping- though I don’t know why…”

 

“We’ll ask him when he comes to.” Marco offered, but Eren posed another question. “Does he even understand us?”

 

They went silent again, since none of them were really capable of answering that. Marco leaned over and turned the water off. Their mermaid lay half-submerged in the water, eyes blissfully closed.

 

“I’ll go get some ice for his head.” Armin announced, and got up and left the room.

 

X

 

Even before he could open his eyes, Jean’s foggy mind was fully able to register that something was off.

 

Eyebrows scrunching together, he could feel water up to his chest and his head strangely above water. He normally slept on the sandy floor of an underwater cave,  _ completely underwater _ , so what was… wait.

 

Memories of the previous events - jumping into a  _ human boat _ and the three humans and all that  _ shouting  _ \- came back to him. Jean’s eyes snapped open and he abruptly sat up, but the sudden movement caused him to slide down in the bath onto his stomach and hit his chin with a  _ bang _ , water sloshing everywhere.

 

He whimpered and rubbed his chin, ‘ _ spawn, that hurt _ ’, then grabbed onto the side of the bathtub and pulled himself up, with quite a bit of struggling. 

 

Looking over the edge, he saw he was in a small, brightly lit human room. The source of light was a circle on the ceiling, which Jean had seen before in ships but he never knew they could produce light. There were two sleeping humans in the room with him, which he recognized from before. The tallest one with freckles was sitting on the… what was it called? He was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet fast asleep, and the other one, the  _ loud _ one with giant green eyes was sitting on the floor with his back against the… sink cabinet, snoring. Jean recalled there being a third, blonde human, but he was nowhere to be found in the room. 

 

Shit, the humans kidnapped him, didn't they? How long had he been out? He scowled at their sleeping faces. He couldn’t move as easily here, but maybe he could pull himself out with what little arm strength he had and escape; the orcas had to be gone by now… 

 

Just as he pulled his other arm out of the water, the third blonde human rushed into the room with some white bag in his hand, harshly slamming the door against the wall, startling the other two humans awake. “I heard a bang and came-” His eyes widened upon seeing the mermaid awake at the side of the tub. 

 

_ ‘Shit,’ _ Jean thought as the other two turned to where the blonde was facing, and wide grins spread over their faces.

 

“Guys, guys, guys, guys, the merman’s awake! He's awake!” The blonde squealed.

 

Jean sunk behind the shallow tub wall as they all came toward the side of the tub. He backed away in the water and snarled defensively. 

 

“Wait, wait,” The freckled one pulled the other two a good few feet away. “Let’s not scare him.”

 

“Right, right, sorry,” The other two muttered. Jean stopped growling once they backed away, but his eyes kept darting between them. The green eyed one cleared his throat to speak in a calmer tone. “We're not gonna hurt you-”

 

“Bull shark.”

 

The three humans blinked in surprise, then eventually, “W-what?” 

 

“I said ‘bull shark’. That's bull shark. You kidnapped me.” Jean spat.

 

He found slight joy in their stunned expressions. The blonde one stuttered, “W-we didn't  _ kidnap _ you-”

 

“ ‘Bull shark’ oh my god, he can fucking talk…” The green eyed one whispered to himself.

 

“-we just knocked you out so you wouldn't hurt anyone. And we put you in here so you wouldn't dehydrate.” The other two humans nodded in affirmation. 

 

Jean risked a glance down at the water he was in, then back up at the humans. “What do you want?”

 

The three exchanged looks. “Well…” The blonde one spoke again. “We really wanna study and learn about you-”

 

“No!” Jean shouted. “Like hell I’m gonna let you experiment on me, put me back!”

 

The freckled human waved his hands. “No, no, merman, we're not going to experiment on you-”

 

“Yes you are!” Jean cut in. “You said you wanted to study me!”

 

“Yeah,  _ study _ you!” The green eyed one yelled, quickly becoming annoyed with the merman’s screeching. “Not all studying involves experiments! We can learn without harming!”

 

Jean glared silently between the three of them, not liking all the attention on him at all. They exchanged glances of the shared excitement that this mermaid could speak english and was intelligent (albeit quite snarky and uncooperative). 

 

Then, “Well I don't want to be studied. Put me back, now.”

 

The three of them looked at each other once again, then Marco spoke sheepishly, shifting his sitting position. “It's just… up until now we thought creatures like you didn't exist…”

 

“And when you let me go I can go right back to not existing.” Jean snarked. “Thanks for not killing me, but I have a life to get back to.” He gave another shot at pulling his upper body over the tub ledge, but to no avail. 

 

“But something like you is huge! We can't just let this slip away…” Armin trailed off watching Jean squirm in the tub. 

 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Eren asked. 

 

“Trying to get out since you spawners won't help.” Jean retorted, pushing his tail against the tub wall to try and force himself over.

 

Marco and Armin shared a raised eyebrow as Eren taunted. “Well, you're not doing very good.” 

 

The merman stopped squirming to cast a glare at Eren.

 

“And what the fuck is a ‘spawner’?”

 

“It's something you call someone who's an absolute moron.” Eren reeled back in offense, despite predicting that ‘spawner’ wasn't exactly a friendly term. “And what the spawn is a ‘fuck’?”

 

Marco clapped a hand over his mouth to stop the giggles, and Armin bit his lip. Eren supplied, “ ‘Fuck’ is also a word you can call a moron, you fuck.”

 

Marco spoke up, “I think they have the same meaning. Isn't spawning for sharks what fucking is for us?”

 

Eren had a look of,  _ ‘oh yeah’ _ , while a faint pink blush spread over the merman’s cheeks. “Humans call spawning ‘fucking’? That sounds dumb.”

 

“Not as dumb as ‘spawning’.” Eren snickered. The merman grumbled a ‘shut up’ and went back to struggling to get out of the tub.

 

“Listen,” Armin began. “I know it must be hard for you, and strange, a situation like this, but it is for us too, and, well…” 

 

Eren picked up for him. “What he's basically trying to say is, can we bribe you into letting us study you?” 

 

The merman gave a look of absolute disgust. “Absolutely  _ not _ .”

 

Marco continued sheepishly. “We noticed you're rather thin. We could feed you. I mean we're fairly decent fishermen and-”

 

“I can hunt just fine on my own, thanks.” The merman replied, blush gaining color.

 

“Don't look like it.” Eren commented, receiving another pointed glare.

 

“Look,” Armin cut in. “Either way, you don't look healthy, and we can help.”

 

The merman looked down. “I don't want help.”

 

“But you need help.”

 

The merman stayed quiet for a minute. He wasn't going to admit it to these humans, but he  _ was _ starving. If all they wanted was to learn, and not experiment, and he'd get food out of it, maybe it was worth a shot. “What fish do you catch?”

 

“Yes!” Eren fist pumped. 

 

Jean shot down, “I never said yes, you idiot! I'm just contemplating.”

 

“What, picky eater?”

 

“ _ Yes _ , actually. If I don't like what you have, I'm not staying.” 

 

Marco stood up to stretch out his legs from the previous sitting position. “We have tuna, salmon, mahi mahi, what do you like?” 

 

Jean chewed the inside of his cheek. “Tuna, mackerel, bonitos… boney fish in general, I guess.” 

 

The humans beamed, and the blonde stood up as well. Jean didn't like how much taller they were like this. “Great! We have those.” Armin informed him.

 

Eren stayed crouched and smirked. “So I take it you've been bribed?”

 

Jean's amber eyes narrowed. “Just for now, spawner. Don't get ahead of yourself.”

 

After that first conversation, Armin started to tend to the merman’s head with the ice bag.  Marco left and retrieved some tuna from their chum bucket (they were feeding him bait, admittedly, but they could fish later).

 

He returned to Eren trying fruitlessly to wash the merman’s hair, with the merman himself protesting that the shampoo ‘looked like whale cum’. Armin had held Eren back, saying something about human hair possibly having different chemical levels of bla bla bla, and in the end, Eren ended up wiping the shampoo off his hands with a pout.

 

Marco gave the merman the fish, and all three humans watched curiously as he practically scarfed down the tuna.

 

“Why are you weirdos watching me eat?” He'd questioned through a mouthful of fish, dropping the bones outside the tub. 

 

“This is how we'll study you,” Armin explained. “Observing. Harmless, see?”

 

“Unless, of course, you'd rather us study you in  _ other _ ways.” Eren had joked, receiving various degrees of disgusted reactions.

 

Armin trashed the fish bones, and the three of them got situated around the tub to set some ground rules. First, they exchanged names. Eren had been more than a little surprised to hear their mythical merman had just a regular name, and not something cool like “Atlanteous” or “Neptune” or at least “Kida” as he had so eloquently put it. Jean had retaliated by making a few stale comments on Eren also having a normal name, so Marco and Armin had quickly pulled apart that scuffle. Now that all four of them were situated and somewhat introduced, they launched into a question session with their merman in the tub and Armin having the honor of asking the first question. 

 

“How do you know English?”

 

Jean replied. “ ‘S what my mum spoke. Learned it from her.”

 

Marco shot Eren a triumphant look,  _ ‘I told you he was born. He has a mum!’ _ . Eren rolled his eyes and asked the next question.

 

“Did your mom give birth to you or were you adopted?” He pointedly glanced at Marco as he said it. 

 

Jean bristled in the water. “I was born, what would make you think I was adopted?”

 

Eren shrugged, grinning. “Just wondering.”

 

Jean huffs and Marco leans forward with another inquiry. “How old are you?”

 

The three humans gawk a little when Jean shrugs in response. “Dunno. Too old to stay with my mum, apparently.”

 

“You… you don’t know how old you are?” Armin asks again, receiving a confirming nod. “Do you have a way to tell time?” Jean shook his head.

 

While Armin was dwelling on Jean’s  _ ‘what the fuck ever’ _ attitude regarding his age, Marco zeroed in on the topic of his mum. “What do you mean ‘too old to stay with your mum’?”

 

Jean shifted a little in the water before answering. His hair was dry now. “When a mershark gets to a certain size, they can officially take care of themselves, so they have to leave their parents. No buts about it, you can’t just get babied your entire life. Most people continue to visit their parents, though I haven’t in a while.”

 

He never said anything, but his tone pretty much gave away his guilt and longing to see his mother. Eren gave him a rare sympathetic look. “My mum died when I was twelve, so, I kinda know how you feel.”

 

Jean nodded. “Thanks.”

 

Marco diverted the conversation in a different direction. “Well, that’s how it works in mershark families, yeah? How about merwhale families and merdolphins… if those are even things…”

 

Jean chuckled softly. “They’re things. Though, I never paid much attention to them. I’m pretty sure as far as merwhales go, it depends on the whale. Some merwhales stay in pods all their life, and some are more lone swimmers like me. Most merdolphins I’ve seen have their five grandparents and ten million cousins in tow, so there’s that.” 

 

Marco, Armin, and Eren stayed quiet as they listened to Jean, entranced. Not only was a real life merman sitting in front of them, but he was telling them that mermaids of various ocean species existed as well! Whales and dolphins no less!

 

“Orcas spawning suck though. Not merorcas, just Orcas.”

 

This caught the three humans by surprise. “Why you gotta hate on free Willy, man?” Eren joked, receiving a confused look from Jean and disapproving glances from freckles and blondie.

 

“... Nevermind, but why do Orcas especially suck?”

 

Jean scoffed and fixed his glare on the shower nozzle. “Because Orcas are the reason I’m on this boat in the first place.”

 

After a short silence, Armin persisted. “Elaborate?”

 

Jean sighed. “I was just enjoying life when suddenly I get circled by a whole pod of ‘em. They start hunting me down and of course I swim away, then I see your boat and decide ‘spawn it’, and jump.” Jean makes a sweeping motion with his hands. “And here we are now.”

 

The three humans take a minute to let Jean’s story sink in a little, before Eren blurted, “Wow. That’s quite an adventure.”

 

“Tell me about it.” Jean grumbled.

 

Marco stayed on the bright side. “At least you didn't get eaten, right? I don't think we're nearly as bad as what those Orcas could've been.”

 

“True, I guess.” Jean agreed. 

 

Suddenly Armin gasped. “No one's been at the wheel!” 

 

Jean watched as Eren and Marco expressions turned to that of panic as they scrambled to their feet. “What's wrong?” Jean asked.

 

“You can't leave boats floating without someone at the wheel, who knows how far we've drifted!” Armin explained before charging out of the bathroom and probably towards the ‘wheel’. 

 

Eren ran after their blonde friend, and Marco leaned out the doorway to shout up, “I'll keep an eye on Jean!”

 

Jean took mild offense to that. When Marco sat back down next to the tub, Jean let him know. “I don't need someone to watch over me.”

 

“You need someone to make sure you don't climb out of the tub and beach yourself.” Marco teased.

 

Jean huffed and turned in the water to face the shower wall.

 

The boat's engine started up, making Jean jump a little. “W-what’s going on!?”

 

“Relax,” Marco supplied. “That's just the boat motor. It's what powers this thing to work and move through the water.”

 

Jean watched as the hum of the so-called engine caused his tub water to ripple mechanically. 

 

The two of them stayed quiet for a few minutes, listening to the engine and the muffled voices of Armin and Eren. They heard Eren’s voice holler down at them, “We're gonna pull into shallower water, near a reef! If we wanna pull an all-nighter in the boat rather than the hotel, we'll have to sleep in shifts!”

 

Marco grunted and got to his feet to yell up his response. “That sounds good!”

 

When he walked back to the tub, Jean had another question posed. “What's a hotel?”

 

“It's like a place you pay to stay temporarily when you're away from home.” 

 

Jean let that settle, before responding, “Oh, then I sleep in hotels all the time!” 

 

Marco chuckled. “It’s a little different than what you’re probably thinking of.” He hummed while looking at Jean with a thoughtful expression. “This is so crazy cool. There's a whole world right under us and you're like the key.” 

 

Jean blushed a little. “Merpeople aren't that interesting.”

 

“That's because they're your people. You're around them all the time. We thought things like you didn't exist.”

 

Jean stayed quiet as Marco continued.

 

“But you  _ do _ exist and you're so incredible.”

 

“Okay, enough.” Marco looked over and saw Jean was glaring at the water with a mad blush spread over his face.

 

Marco held his hand to his mouth in a futile attempt to stop giggling. It didn't work, and Jean turned even redder.Incredible, that they were completely different species yet so alike in nature. Something told Marco that this would be a whole lot of fun.

 

“Alright we're in place!” Armin’s voice billowed down. “Sunset’s on it’s way so one of us should take first shift!”

 

Marco moved to get up, but felt a tug on his shorts. He looked back down at Jean, who had his eyebrows furrowed. “Who’s sunset?”

 

Marco laughed lightly. “Oh, sunset isn’t a person. It’s what we call the time of the day where the sun goes down over the horizon so we can’t see it anymore, telling us that it’s now nighttime, when we should go to sleep.”

 

Jean got quiet, trying to visualize what that must look like. His grip on Marco’s shorts loosened and Marco squatted back down again. 

 

“Jean, do you sleep?”

 

_ A big question among sharks is whether or not they sleep. Some sharks need to constantly move to push water through their gills, while others don’t. Marco’s guessing Jean is one that doesn’t need to constantly move. _

 

“Yeah! I do…” He glanced down at the tub he was in, the warm water had now gotten cold, though Jean didn’t really feel the temperature change, being used to much colder waters. “But I can’t imagine me sleeping in this… thing.”

 

Marco nodded sympathetically as Eren came back into the room, meaning Armin was the one taking the first shift. “Well, it’s the only place we can keep you without you drying up.”

 

Jean glanced up at the two of them with hopeful eyes. 

 

Eren shook his head. “Oh no, you are  _ not _ gonna pretend to sleep in the ocean just so you can swim away. Mmn. Nope. Nada. Not fooling me.”

 

“I’m not gonna swim away! We already made a deal with the fish!” Jean protested. He really didn’t like the height advantage the humans had on him when standing.

 

“And we don’t know whether to trust you yet or not! So no!”

 

Marco stayed quiet observing this. He didn’t know what, but something was giving him the sense that this merman could be trusted, at least with this little issue. He spoke up, dragging the two bickering boys apart.

 

“Do you promise not to swim away if we let you sleep in the ocean, and stay close to the boat?”

 

“But Marco-”

 

He hushed Eren and looked back at Jean in the tub. “Yes, I promise.”

 

“And you’re not gonna break the deal?”

 

“No, I won’t. Free food is free food.”

 

Marco glanced at Eren, who had his arms crossed with a pout. “Okay, fine, whatever. But if we end up losing this merman, I’m never letting you live it down.”

 

Marco grinned and pulled him in for a hug. “Thanks, Eren!” 

 

“Yeah, whatever.” He grumbled, a faint pink on his brown cheeks.

 

Marco pulled away and leaned over Jean. “I’m gonna carry you out, okay?” 

 

Jean nodded. Marco scooped his arms under the water, and hoisted the merman up once again. Eren trailed behind the two as they exited the bathroom and ascended the steps, Jean looking around in slight awe as they went. When they got into the open air again, Marco smiled as Jean gasped upon seeing the sunset for what was probably his first time. Even Eren’s lips were curled up. Armin saw them, and gave a wave as they trudged towards the back of the boat and Marco sat down at the ledge, Jean already eagerly squirming at the sight of the waves. 

 

“Alright, you’re not swimming away, right?” Eren drawled.

 

“Yeah, yeah, just- come on!”

 

Marco laughed a little, then finally let his arms loosen as Jean splashed into the water. He and Eren watched the waves for a few moments before Jean resurfaced again a couple feet away, hair plastered to his forehead and already looking ten times happier. 

 

“Come back up in the morning, we’ll go fishing for you!” Eren called out to him.

 

Jean rolled his eyes and yelled back. “Yes, mom!” Then disappeared under the waves.

 

Marco stood up again, grinning to meet Eren’s hard green gaze. “If he’s gone tomorrow, it’s on you.” Marco simply wrapped an arm around his friend’s shoulders and began walking back toward the bedroom. “Relax, I have a feeling he’s not gonna go anywhere.”


	3. And Don't Even Get Me Started On Sharknado

Splitting up an entire night watch between only three people means ridiculous but still necessarily long shifts. I mean, they had an anchor that they could use at any time, but given the current series of events, no one on board was really in the clearest state of mind.

Oh, and one other thing: the person with the last shift had to wake everyone else up.

“Rise and shine, motherfuckers! Get the hell up, we have a goddamn merman to fucking study!”

Marco let out a loud, displeased groan from the on-board bed, and Armin, who was next to him, tried to drown out Eren’s insistent screaming by throwing a pillow at him. The pillow went unnoticed as it flopped at Eren’s feet. “Come on, I know we’ve all had only five and a half hours of sleep, but we’ve got more important fish to fry!” He shouted this as he jumped onto the bed, effectively squashing it’s inhabitants in the process. “Well, I mean, actually- we’re not gonna _fry_ him but you get my point-”

“Erennnnnnnn shutthefuckup.” Marco grumbled into his pillow.

Marco let out an _‘oof’_ as Eren landed none too gently on top of him. “I’ll shutthefuckup when you two getthefuckup. Or should I say ‘get the spawn up’? What do you think?”

Sighing, Armin finally sat up and yawned, stretching his arms in the air. They were all still wearing their tank tops and cargo shorts from yesterday. Hygienic.

Eventually, all three boys clambered out of the bed, electing to ignore all the sheets and blankets that had slid off it and onto the floor in the process, and trudged their way up the stairs to the deck.

Marco shivered a little as the cool, morning sea air hit him. Armin rubbed at the goosebumps that had instantly formed on his arms. On one side of the sky, the last hints of dark blue and and stars were sinking behind the ocean horizon, taking the moon with it. On the other side of the sky, blindingly bright orange and yellow gave way for a rising sun, which was ever so slowly warming up the earth, making the water surface shimmer. Not a stretch of land or rock for miles. Marco sighed contently. He loved this part of the morning, and he was never awake early enough to see it, so this was a real treasure.

Armin had already been dragged over to the back ledge of the boat by Eren, missing the beautiful spectacle of the sky completely, and was staring at the water in thought as Eren drawled on.

“This is shallow water so he should be sleeping, like, right below us, right? How does he even sleep? Just… curl up in the sand? That seems dangerous. And how are we supposed to wake him up? What if he’s a deep sleeper? Fuck, I hope he didn’t swim away! If he did-”

“ _Eren._ ” Armin shut him up. He hummed and stared at the miniature waves lapping at the side of the boat. Marco shuffled over and stood behind them as they thought of ways to possibly get Jean to surface.

Armin finally voiced a thought, speaking slowly and sluggishly. “Tapping your finger on the side of the boat echoes through the water. People do it to attract dolphins and Orcas and stuff.”

Marco dismissed that idea, “... might do just that though, get dolphins and Orcas as well as Jean.”

They all went back to thinking, staring at the spot of water Jean had disappeared under just last night.

“What if we turned the engine on- oh wait no, that’d be mean…” Marco quickly stomped down his own idea.

Armin suggested another one. “Cut a fish and hold it in the water?”

While the two contemplated ways to wake the mershark up, neither had noticed Eren pulling himself into the previously forgotten diving gear. Adjusting his oxygen tank and goggles, he sat on the short wall of the boat, back facing out towards the water.

He grinned wolfishly and called out, “Don’t worry guys, I’ll go get him!”

Upon turning around, Marco and Armin gawked in disbelief at their friend.

“You can’t be serious-”, “Eren don’t-”

“Byeeeeee!”

Eren fell back into the chilly water with a splash as Armin and Marco hurried over in mild panic. Armin scowled at the warped silhouette of Eren under the waves. “He didn’t even attach himself to the boat with a cord or something- what is he thinking!?”

The cold of the water had shocked Eren somewhat, but really, he hadn’t expected anything else. Shaking off his initial jolt, he kicked his flipper-clad feet and swam down through the water. It really was shallow here, couldn’t be more than maybe twelve feet at most; you could see the seafloor from the boat! And with the gear, it would be easy to get down there. As he neared the sandy bed, little minnows and crabs skittered away. Plants swayed gently with the current, and Eren found himself admiring the colors of the coral before shaking himself to focus on finding and waking up a mershark.

Kicking his flippers, he could already see Jean wasn't under the boat, nor was he in the spot he had gone under the previous night. Eren felt doubt start to rise in the back of his mind but he beat it down, intending to stay positive. Looking around, Eren saw there wasn’t much to the sea floor besides the dusty, pale yellow sand and the scattering of green plants and rocks. Every so often was a little hill of coral with fish and ocean plants swirling around in little microhabitats. Eren kicked his feet and swam over to the nearest one - the one closest to the spot he’d last seen Jean.

He circled around it once, not seeing a sleeping Mershark anywhere. He noticed that there was a little tunnel inside the hill of coral, and that none of the fish were willing to enter it. Eren pushed himself lower to take a peek inside, and there he was.

Jean was curled up in the middle of the coral tunnel, sleeping soundly in the dark shade and cool sand. Strands of ashen hair swayed gently in the water, and his gills fluttered every time he took a breath. He had his tail coiled around himself protectively, and looking at him, Eren felt calm and at peace. Eren smiled at the spectacle, then reminded himself that he had a job to do.

 _‘Rise and shine, sleeping beauty.’_ He thought, swimming further into the low tunnel. Hovering over Jean, Eren put a hand on his shoulder - Christ, he could feel the bone underneath - and gently shook the merman.

Jean’s eyebrows drew together and Eren could hear his grumble through the water, hunching his shoulders up in refusal to wake. Grinning, Eren shook him again, though a little rougher.

This time, two amber eyes blinked open and squinted at him in irritation. Eren smiled smugly and waved. Jean huffed and then unfurled his tail with a graceful swish, fanning sand as he went, then flipped over onto his other side, creating an even bigger cloud of sand upon landing.

Eren rolled his eyes. _‘He’s like me in middle school. And high school. College too, actually.’_

Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. Eren pushed off the cave wall and floated over Jean’s now stretched-out tail, said merman contently ignoring him. Eren leaned over and scanned his eyes along Jean’s white underside. Aha, found it.

Eren reached his hand out and poked Jean’s claspers.

His reaction was instantaneous and _hilarious_ in Eren’s opinion. Jean jolted immediately and yanked his tail away from Eren, finally swimming up from the sandy floor, sputtering and red-faced the whole way. The merman glared as Eren curled up and cackled, and I mean _cackled_. Eren could swear there were _tears_ coming out of his eyes.

Jean rolled his eyes and grumbled at Eren, turning his back and swimming poutily out of the other end of the coral tunnel and out into the sunnier waters. Eren soon followed as Jean made his way upward toward the back of the boat, his irritation turning into eagerness for his first real meal in a long time.

Armin grabbed Marco’s arm and pointed at the two blurry spots under the waves. “Eren found him! There they are!”

Jean’s head broke the water’s surface first, Eren following seconds after. As Marco helped pull Jean onto the back ledge, Armin chastised a groaning Eren about how reckless of a stunt he just pulled.

“You didn’t even connect yourself to the boat or tell any of us - Eren you don’t just do that!”

Eren met Armin’s furious stare. “Yeah, well what’s done is done. I got Jean, didn’t I? And you two were going to take all day coming up with some way to get him. I just took initiative.”

“Well, just tell someone before you do something like that again, alright?”

Eren huffed an looked down, picking at scuba suit clinging wetly to his body. “Okay, _fine_.”

Jean had watched this exchange with some confusion. He turned to Marco, who was sitting on the deck next to him, and asked, “What’s Armin so angry at Eren about?”

“He went scuba diving for you without telling us. Or following _any_ of the proper procedures.”

“And that’s dangerous because you guys can’t breath underwater… right?”

Marco nodded. “Yep.”

Armin finally turned to Jean, his previous parent-like frown being replaced by a warm smile. “Good morning Jean! Did you sleep well?”

“I was until _someone_ poked my claspers.” Jean snarled in Eren’s direction. Marco gasped and Armin’s jaw dropped, both of them looking at Eren. Eren put his hands up. “Look, he wasn’t waking up-”

“So you touch his genitals!?” Armin squawked. Eren shrugged. “Well when you put it like that it sounds gross.”

Jean spoke up. “Hey, hey, they’re not gross!”

Marco hissed. “To us, they kinda are.” Jean guffawed at him in betrayal.

Armin shook his hands in the air. “Well, whatever. Time for breakfast. Marco, can you and Eren make us something from the food stash while I set up a fishing pole for Jean?”

Marco nodded and Eren gave a thumbs up. “You got it!”

X

When Marco said they were decent fisherman, he was making a huge understatement. Armin had managed to catch Jean a _spawning blue marlin_. A _swordfish_! Jean’s mouth had watered at the sight, and he’d downed the whole thing minus the skeleton, tail, fins, and head in a few minutes flat, ignoring Armin’s impressed comments about his appetite.

Once Jean and the other three had finished eating (Marco had whipped up some pancakes, which Jean asked several questions about), Armin proposed that today, he wanted to get a diagram drawn of Jean’s anatomy, as well as observe him swimming and possibly hunting later in the day. Jean still felt rather uncomfortable with all this attention centered on him, but that was his part of the deal he had to uphold, so there was no buts.

Then for the next two hours, he flipped and flopped into different positions as Armin did his best to accurately sketch the merman. Eren and Marco took turns dumping buckets of water onto Jean every now and then to ensure he didn’t dry up. Marco gave a shot at drawing once or twice, and he wasn’t bad. But Eren - oh God _Eren_ \- his drawing skills were quite lacking. And so, he’d been banned from the sketching position. By lunchtime, Armin and Marco had complete anatomical sketches of Jean from the bottom view, top view, and side view. They then spent a few minutes labeling as much as they could, an activity Eren could actually participate in.

They allowed Jean to freely swim around underneath as they did this. He was bored enough as it is. He was currently resting on his stomach in the shadow the boat cast under the water. In all honesty, he was surprised humans didn't think merfolk existed. Jean didn't know much about merfolk’s interactions with humans aside from his mother's warnings to stay away. But he was one of the obident few. There had to be others who'd chanced fate, right? Well, Jean didn't know. Merfolk just didn't have methods of information sharing except for by mouth, which was never very reliable.

Growing up, Jean had never questioned what his mom told him about the world outside of the ocean and the things they might do to him. He still trusted her judgement, that there were people who would harm or experiment or even kill things they simply didn't understand, but Marco, Armin and Eren were different from her description and what he'd been expecting. Of course, he was lucky he ended up with these kinds of humans rather than the ones he'd been taught to fear.

Jean sighed, the pressure kicking up sand in front of him. He really did miss his mother. But she could be anywhere across the whole Atlantic, so the chance of running into her were very slim. Jean sighed again, moving to rest his cheek on his forearms. He hoped she was at least doing okay.

Suddenly, an anchor hit the sandy floor a few yards away from him with a heavy _thunk!_ And three figures splashed into the water around him, creating clouds of bubbles and disrupting the serene quiet. Armin, Marco and Eren were all decked out in their own diving gear, looking down at him with eager grins from their diving goggles (the goggles covered the entire face and were hooked up to the oxygen tanks on their backs. Jean had seen diving gear before, and divers at that, but only from a safe distance.)

Jean pushed himself off the sandy sea floor and swam over to the three humans with a questioning look.

Marco spoke first. “So it's lunchtime and we know you're probably hungry, so we thought this would be a prime opportunity to watch how you hunt!”

Jean squinted, his tail and fins making miniscule movements to keep him afloat. “And what if I don't catch anything?”

“We’ll still get information on your fishing tactics. And one of us will just catch something again for you if you're unsuccessful. Don't worry, we're not breaking our half of the deal.”

Jean worried his bottom lip between sharp teeth. “Alright.”

Eren pointed dramatically out into the blue. “Now go hunt!”

Jean rolled his eyes at him. “Well first of all, I can't have you guys breathing down my tail, because you're noisy and you'll scare the fish away. No offense.”

Armin chuckled. “None taken. We'll give you a full range of space.”

Jean nodded. “Okay, then.”

With that, he turned and gave a hard swish of his tail and started off into the ocean. He knew he wouldn't go far, and he'd easily be able to trace his way back to the boat if he lost sight of it. In order to play out his element-of-surprise hunting strategy, Jean knew he'd need to find a mound of coral that went higher up than the one he'd slept in last night. It didn't take long.

This mound of coral was in a deeper area, and shot up in jagged spikes. There were endless holes and tunnels in the sides of the structure, where fish and sea animals swam happily in and around.

Still out of sight of the coral mountain, Jean took a deep breath, knowing Armin, Marco, and Eren were somewhere behind him and watching.

_‘It's okay, Jean. Pretend they aren't there. This is just normal, every day hunting like usual with a 50% chance of catching something. And don't purposely slack off just so they'll fish for you, come on, I know you.’_

He grumbled quietly at himself, then trained his eyes on the coral, looking for something to target. There were plenty of cute little clown fish, but Jean didn't bother with those since they were so small. He remembers loving them when he was just a pup. There was an eel he could go after, but those were always a tough and dangerous catch.

_‘Aha. There you are.’_

He smirked to himself as a catfish came lazily swimming around the side of a coral spike. It looked slower, and Jean noticed a tear already in one of its fins.

_‘Even better.’_

Jean pushed off of the sand bank and joined the fish circling around the bottom of the coral structure. They quickly darted inside the holes and tunnels upon seeing such a larger, predatory creature join the proximity, but Jean didn't pay any mind to those. He had his gaze trained on the injured catfish grazing along above.

The second he was directly below his catch, he darted up with a powerful kick of his tail, knowing there was no way the catfish would get away. He sunk his sharp teeth into the surprised catfish before it could even register what was going on. Other fish (and the eel) swam away and into the coral mountain as a cloud of warm blood swirled around Jean as he ate. Within moments, he'd stripped the creature down to the skeleton. He dropped the bones carelessly, then swam back over the sand bank to where an excited trio of humans were waiting.

“Dude, that was surreal!” Eren yelled, bubbles escaping through his mask. Armin was already backpedaling towards the direction of the boat, no doubt eager to write this all down before the little details left his mind.

“I saw you checkin’ out that eel too. But you went for the catfish because it was an easier catch, right?” Eren asked.

“Yeah,” Jean answered. “And eels fight back pretty hard. Their bites hurt a lot, too. Even worse if they’re poisonous.”

Marco joined in. “I take it you’ve been bitten by one before?”

Jean nodded. “Oh yeah, not a poisonous one though, thankfully. I was really little. I tried to hunt on my own, but the eel was really big so I probably would’ve been eaten if my mom hadn’t come in and killed it. She was furious.” He laughed to himself as the four of them approached the back ledge of the boat, Armin quickly scrambling up first and throwing his gloves off somewhere on deck.

Eren made a face at Jean’s story. “ _Yikes_. That must’a been scary.”

“ _Mhm_.” Jean broke the water’s surface and folded his arms on the ledge, brushing his wet hair out of his face as Eren and then Marco made their way onto the boat. Armin was kneeling next to a chair, scribbling into the journal he’d secluded for Jean-related things only on the seat.

Marco took off his goggles and ruffled his own hair. “It’s a little strange how you’re just as much predator as prey. Humans are really used to being top of the food chain, though granted, if you took away all our technology and stuff and then put one of us in a room with a lion or something, the lion’d come out on top.”

Jean let out a hum, taking that in. Armin pipped up, never taking his eyes off the journal. “I’m putting in your childhood stories too, okay?”

Jean shrugged. “Sure, I guess. What are you gonna do with all the information you gather on me anyway?”

“I’m not sure.” Armin answered honestly, the movement of his pencil stopping. “Sharing it with the world would lead to disaster for your kind, so there’s no way I’m letting this thing get published.” He fiddled with the brown leather of the cover. “I mean, a secret like this is huge. Even if we were to publish this, we’d most likely get labeled as insane and no one would believe it anyway, but there are always those crackpots who’ll believe anything and then go out fishing for whichever sea tale they last heard.”

Jean suppressed a shudder at the thought of being fished by humans. He wasn’t idiot enough to fall for the lame bait-on-a-string thing they always did, but the idea was still unpleasant.

Marco spoke up, trying to alleviate the mood. “Well, I think this thing is best just kept among us, then. Perhaps one day there’ll be a time where humans and merfolk can interact and learn about each other without danger, but for now I think it’s best we keep this to ourselves.”

Eren and Armin nodded, then a guttural rumble came from the boat’s back ledge. Jean flushed pink.

“Are you _still_ hungry?” Eren whined.

Jean scowled. “Shut up!”

Marco waved his hands. “No worries, I’ll go set up a pole. Eren, be nice.”

Eren groaned and Armin laughed from his spot next to the chair.

X

“What the _spawn_!?”

The next day, Marco had woken Jean up instead of Eren. The merman was still just as cranky as the day before, so they concluded it wasn’t just an Eren thing, but more of a Jean-doesn’t-do-mornings thing.

Jean was leaning against the boat ledge again, watching as Armin clicked away on something called a “computer”. Stuff was moving around on the surface, or “screen” of the “computer”, which was the weirdest thing Jean had ever seen. Yes, he’d seen plenty of computers in plane and ship wrecks before, but they never did that. Armin was currently on “YouTube”, but that wasn’t what had Jean so surprised. He was watching a video about Mako sharks.

“What the spawn!?” Jean shrieked again, earning a groan from below deck, which was probably Eren. “H… how? Do you- this- that is- _what?_ ”

Armin giggled at Jean’s reaction, as the Mako on screen swam along. “People - scuba divers - go underwater with cameras to get this footage.”

“What the spawn is a _camera_?”

Armin explained, “It’s a device that you can record sights and sounds with. Like this video, here.” He pointed at the Mako, which was now being happily pet by the person holding the camera.

“Are there any ‘videos’ on merfolk… ?” Jean questioned, looking worried.

“Yeah,” Armin answered. “But no one believes any of it’s genuine. There’s always some way or another that people can make it out to be fake.”

Jean let out a sigh of relief. “O-oh okay…” He leaned over a little more to see the video better. “What are you doing anyway?”

Armin beamed. “I’m gathering more facts about Mako sharks to add to the journal, since your tail clearly resembles a Mako.”

Jean glanced down at his tail, swaying slowly in the ocean water.

Armin continued. “This video showed the musculature of Makos. Your tail fin bares a remarkable resemblance to tuna tails, which is why you’re so fast!”

Jean felt himself smirk pridefully. “I’m much faster than _tuna_ , thank you very much.”

“That you are.” Armin grinned, turning back to face his computer. “Did you know there’s two tendons that run from the end of your tail to your head? Or actually… you’re different than a Mako shark so they might go up to your hips… But anyway, pulling on each of those tendons allows the side to side movements. Cool, huh?”

He glanced at Jean, who was curiously looking down at his own tail again. He experimentally swished his tail side to side, making ripples in the water. “I don’t feel them…”

“It’s probably because you’re so used to moving like that, so it’s just muscle memory by now.”

Eren suddenly came barreling up from below deck in nothing but a pair of gray boxers, holding a plate of waffles with Marco scrambling at his heels close behind. “Eren give those back!”

“Nu-uh! They’re mine now!” Eren shouted, running past Armin and Jean to round the front of the boat. A waffle flew off the plate in the process, and landed smack in front of Jean’s nose as Marco dashed after their rambunctious friend.

He curiously reached out and grabbed the warm waffle, inspecting it and then hesitantly giving it a sniff.

“It’s called a waffle.” Armin supplied. “You eat it. Normally for breakfast, but Eren kinda eats whatever he wants whenever he wants.”

Jean squished the waffle in his hands a little. “What’s it taste like?”

“Cooked batter, I guess. Bready, sugary, I don’t know… it’s good.”

He opened his mouth to take an experimental bite, but was quickly stopped by Armin shouting, “Wait! Wait! Wait! I don’t know if you’re body’ll be able to process it! You’re a carnivore, so…”

Jean quickly snapped his mouth shut, looking at the waffle in betrayal. “Oh…”

Armin went on. “I mean, you probably do have a human stomach so you might be able too… honestly, the worst that could happen is some stomach cramps... unless you’re allergic to something.”

Jean frowned and chucked the waffle at Eren the next time he came around with Marco hot on his heels. “Yeah, no thanks.”

X

“Have you ever eaten a pufferfish?” Eren asks the next day when they’re observing Jean hunting again.

Jean grimaces. “Spawn no.”

“What about an anglerfish?”

Jean shoots a weird look back at Eren, who is swimming along with his back towards the ground. Armin and Marco are following next to them.

“What’s an anglerfish?”

Armin says, “It’s a fish that lives waaaaay down at the bottom of the ocean. It’s a bony fish like the ones you eat, but I doubt you’ve ever gone down that far.”

Jean looks ahead of him again and resumes swimming. “Probably not. I like seeing where I’m going.”

Marco chuckles. “They’re also kinda ugly, and very aggressive, so I’m not sure if hunting one would be worth it. Especially with all those teeth.”

Jean shudders at the mental image. “I have no idea what those look like, but I’ll take your word for it.” Suddenly, he stops swimming and turns around. “Wait, how do you know what anglerfish look like?”

Marco explains, “People have put cameras on robots and sent them way down to the bottom of the ocean. It’s how we get the footage, since that much weight would crush a human.”

Jean tilts his head. “What’s a robot?”

“It’s a mechanical… thing.” Eren eloquently drawls, kicking by. “People program them to do different jobs. Different robots have different functions, ya know?”

Jean huffs. “No, I don’t know, but thanks for elaborating.”

The four continue on swimming. They come to the coral spire where Jean had caught the catfish just two days ago, so Armin, Marco, and Eren hang back while Jean keeps going lower towards the base. There’s a nice looking Snapper around the halfway up the coral mountain that’s caught Jean’s attention. It’s swimming along oblivious to the blind spot below it, while the smaller fish below dart into the coral and out of Jean’s way.

As he circles with his gaze locked onto the Snapper, he doesn’t notice the same eel from before following behind him. Marco sees it first, and tries to shout at Jean to get out of there, but it’s too late.

The eel's large jaw falls open to reveal rows of pointy little teeth and it surges forward and clamps down on Jean’s left shoulder. The three humans watch in terror as Jean lets out a shocked cry of pain. Eren rushes over as blood starts to seep from the wound, Jean’s violent thrashing and writhing only digging the eel’s teeth in further as the other fish scatter away panic. Eren angrily bats the eel away, tearing it off Jean's flesh, and it hisses at Eren and is about to attack him, but then it sees Armin and Marco closing in on Jean, and knowing it’s outnumbered by the larger creatures, quickly slithers away in fear.

“ _Jean!_ ” Marco cries, holding an arm around the merman’s stomach as he inspects the torn skin and flesh with anxious concern. More blood rises from the gash, clouding bright red around Jean’s shoulder. “Jean, how bad does it hurt?”

Jean shakes himself free of his shock, and hesitantly moves his bleeding shoulder. He winces with a grunt, his entire body twitching in response to the pain. “B… Bad…” He whispers.

Marco looks up at Eren, who is seething with anger, and Armin, who is looking as analytical as he is concerned. “Let’s get him out of here immediately. His blood’s gonna attract every predator for miles around.”

Marco and Eren nod, each moving to wrap an arm underneath one of Jean’s shoulders to help him swim along through the aching pain. They go as fast as they can, slowing down when the water pressure starts to hurt Jean’s open gash, blood flowing freely in a gruesome trail behind them. Eventually, the boat comes back into their view, and Jean demands they get there immediately, no matter how much it hurts, but they know it would just make the wound worse and that Jean’s thoughts are foggy from the hot throbbing currently coursing through his left shoulder.

The three of them break the surface and Marco and Eren carry Jean onto the deck where they lay him on his stomach, Jean whimpering the whole way. Now out of water, the blood from his shoulder seeps out of the open gash, dripping down the side of his torso and onto the boat’s floor. The tears of pain finally start forming in Jean’s eyes and roll down his cheeks as Armin scrambles below deck to retrieve the medical kit.

Jean has half a mind to snap, “What the spawn is this water coming from my eyes?”

Marco puts a hand on Jean’s lower back in a subtle attempt to calm his harsh breathing and answers. “Tears. They come from tear ducts in the eyes when you’re feeling a whole lot of one emotion. Or pain.”

Jean let’s out a hiss as a breeze blows by, cool salty air rushing over the sensitive, torn open flesh. Eren moves his body to try and block the incoming air as Armin finally emerges up the stairs with the medical kit in hand. He falls to his knees next to Jean and begins speaking to him in a soothing and controlled professional tone.

“It’s alright, everything’s gonna be okay, Jean. This is easily fixable.”

Jean kind of wants to snap at the man to shut up, but finds himself drowning out Armin’s narration of what he was doing to treat Jean as he begins gently whipping disinfectant over the profusely bleeding laceration.

“ _Ahh!_ ” Jean cries out at the sting of the alcohol as the liquid fizzes into his flesh and kills any bacteria there. “What the spawn, that hurts even _worse!_ ” He squirms and writhes, but Marco firmly holds him still.

“It’s Hydrogen Peroxide, Jean. It’s killing any bacteria inside the wound so that you won’t get infect-”

“I don’t care!” Jean snaps, eyes clenched shut. “Just keep going!”

Armin doesn’t take it to heart, knowing Jean’s panicked and in pain. He silently resumes caring for Jean’s shoulder. The next thing he needs to worry about is whether or not the eel was poisonous. Eren, ever a doctor’s son, seems to be following his line of thought, and answers his unvoiced question. “I recognized that species of eel. It’s not poisonous, and the gashes would be swelling up much more if it was.”

Armin nods, at least one concern being tacked off the list, but the rows of bloodied teeth marks covering an impressive expanse of left shoulder are just as distressing. Wasting no more time, Armin reaches for the roll of medical bandages inside the kit, and the quickly begins flipping through the guide book for the proper way to wrap a shoulder wound.

Eren, who apparently already knows, snatches the roll from Armin’s grasp, and starts wrapping it over the wound by making gentle but firm alternating loops around Jean's chest and under his left arm. Jean’s blood seeps through the first few layers of bandage, but soon disappears as Eren keeps going. Satisfied, Eren reaches for the scissors and cuts the bandage, then tapes the end piece to the rest.

He pats Jean’s lower back, who is panting. “It’s all done. You were good.”

Jean sighs and finally relaxes, his eyes staying shut. They all take a few moments to breathe and calm their nerves, Marco allowing his grip on Jean to loosen. Jean’s gonna be okay. It’ll take a week or two to heal - longer than they’re staying on San Salvador - but they’ll worry about that later.

For now, everything’s okay.


	4. The Shallows Had Me Shook

The four of them stay like that for a few minutes, breathing to settle their nerves as the sun rolls on by above and Jean slowly starts to dry. Eventually, Marco breaks the silence by turning to Armin and Eren. “We shouldn’t let him dry up. Buckets of water will damage the bandaging, but sponging him might do the trick.”

 

His friends nod in agreement, then look down at a substantially more calm Jean to ask if that was alright.

 

“Yeah, whatever, okay.” He snaps, glaring tiredly at the railing of the boat since his head is turned on it’s side. The three frown when Jean moves slightly, wincing at the little grunt of pain he lets out.

 

Armin stays kneeling next to the merman as Eren and Marco run down the stairs to get the buckets and a few sponges. They remerge and the three quickly get to work filling the buckets with ocean water and then gently running the wet sponges along Jean’s tail and body. The skin on his shark half is rough like sandpaper, and Marco takes care not to bend his fins too much when he gets to working on those. He lets Jean experimentally move them to get back some semblance of control over his own body.

 

Eren and Armin focus on Jean’s human half, Armin gently pouring some water over Jean’s hair and arms while Eren sponges around the edges of Jean’s bandages. The material wraps around his front and back, as well as over his left shoulder where the large wound resides.

 

Eren leans back and proclaims. “We’ll change the bandages in a few hours. You should just stay on your stomach for now so you don’t put pressure on the wound.”

 

Jean scowls in the direction of the ocean. “ _Why_ are you sponging me, again?”

 

“Because these bandages aren’t waterproof. And we can’t let you dry up.” Eren answers, squeezing his sponge over Jean’s dorsal fin. At this point, Jean’s decided to just close his eyes and bare the treatment. It actually feels good, kinda.

 

Armin looks up at that. “There weren’t any waterproof bandages in the kit, were there?”

 

Marco leans back and grabs the medical kit, quickly leafing through its contents, then looks back up and Armin and shakes his head. “No waterproof bandages.”

 

Armin and Eren share a concerned look. Marco starts to suggest, “They might have some back at the hotel…”

 

The three look at one another, silently weighing the pros and cons of that scenario. The hotel would definitely have waterproof bandages, several rolls at that, and they can’t keep sponging Jean forever so those are a bit of a necessity at this time. However, they’re a good few hours away from the island, which means they’d get there around nightfall considering the beginnings of sunset starting to show now.

 

“One of us could go into the hotel,” Eren proposes. “While the other two stay with Jean at the docks and makes sure no one sees him. Then we can spend the night on the boat again and Jean can just sleep under it!”

 

The nod in solid agreement to that plan, then Eren squeezes his sponge over Jean’s head to get his attention. Eren gets whacked in the thigh with a fin before Jean shakes his wet hair and opens his eyes in irritation. “I’m not asleep, you spawner! I heard everything!”

 

“And?”

 

“I’m for it.”

 

X

 

For the next couple of hours, Marco and Eren continue to keep Jean from drying up on the deck while Armin drives through the slowly darkening waves in the direction of San Salvador island. For a while, all they can see for miles in any direction is just ocean, ocean, and more ocean. The setting sun causes orange light to glint off the water, only indicating further the time crunch they’re on. Armin let’s them know when he sees the little strip of land that is no doubt San Salvador island, and little smaller specks of land around it.

 

The college students only have three more days in the Bahamas, which is in no way enough time for Jean to fully heal. They’ll supervise his recovery process for now, but they’ll need to figure out a way for him to stay safe on his own. The thought that in three days, they might never see Jean again, is depressing alone, but that’s not what’s important right now; they need to focus on Jean’s eel bite and how he’s going to take care of it when the three boys are gone.

 

“We could leave you the bandages and teach you how to put them on yourself…” Marco starts to suggest, dousing Jean’s lower back, adding to the never ending puddle of water that’s accumulated around the merman.

 

Jean frowns up at him. “You guys all live near the ocean, right? Mass- Massa… chu-”

 

“Massachusetts.” Eren finishes for him. “And yeah, we are by the ocean, but we can't just have you swim all the way up the coast and stay with us. We wouldn't be able to visit you at the beach everyday because it would get attention, so maybe only every other day. It's not a sound solution.” He scratches his hair absentmindedly.

 

Jean huffs angrily - not at Eren but at the circumstances - and glares at nothing in particular as he rests his chin in his forearms once again. Eren dumps the remaining ocean water over his shark half, then gets up to refill it at the back of the boat.

 

“We’ll be there in just a few minutes,” Armin calls from the cockpit. “I’ll try to pull into a spot farthest from the shore so Jean’s chances of being seen are smaller!”

 

“Shhh!” Eren hushes him from the stern. “Keep it down!”

 

Jean lifts his head up now, and looks at the scene before him in fascination. The sun’s been gone for a good fifteen minutes now, and the sky is dark with stars sprinkled across it’s wide expanse. The moon has white light glinting off the ocean’s surface, while seabirds bob and float near the dock in their slumber.

 

Jean’s seen islands and land masses before, but as Armin drives the boat closer and closer to San Salvador, he reminisces that he’s never been this close to one. This side of the island boasts a rocky cove with a small beach in between the sharp cliffs, and two wooden docks stretching out from said beach. He sees that barnacles and seaweed are crawling up the pilings supporting the docks.

 

On the beach, a few people strolling around in the sand, but not many considering the late hour. More people are walking down the boardwalk or standing around and talking by what Jean assumes are their boats parked on the dock. Farther up the beach and past the sand dunes where the beach ends, glowing light from the squat hotel’s windows can be seen. The only sounds are the gentle slapping of small waves hitting the beach, as well as the rustling of the trees overtop the rocky cove when night breezes blow by.

 

Like he said, Armin pulls into the spot at the very end of one of the docks, keeping the side of the boat that Jean’s on facing out towards the sea so no one will see him. Jean’s slightly disappointed that he can no longer see anything from where he lays in his puddle of ocean water, but he knows it’s only for his own safety. He still frowns about it anyway.

 

Armin cuts the engine and walks over to the bow, tying the boat to a metal cleat on the dock with a sturdy rope to keep it from drifting off. He returns back to Eren, Marco, and Jean on the other side of the boat. “I’ll go in and get the waterproof bandages,” He says, voice low. “How many rolls should I get?”

 

Eren and Marco share a look, their faces illuminated by the moonlight. Marco turns back to Armin. “Maybe two or three?”

 

Armin nods. “And I’ll tell the lady that it’s for one of you.” With that, Armin steps off the boat, and begins walking down the dock and towards the hotel. Marco watches as he waves politely at some people as he makes his way across the sandy beach, still wearing the scuba-diving suit like the rest of them. They’ve kind of been too preoccupied to change back into regular clothes. When Armin disappears over the dunes, Marco turns back to Eren and Jean, one of whom has started squirming in discomfort.

 

“You okay, Jean?” He asks.

 

“Spawnin’ dandy, Marco.” He grunts sardonically. It’s clear that the pain in his shoulder is acting up again, and Marco worries slightly for their less-than-professional treatment of Jean’s severe injury. He puts a hand on Jean’s lower back and rubs his thumb in circles in a meek attempt at causing some relief.

 

“Eren,” He says. “Could you check the med kit for painkillers?”

 

Eren nods and grabs the box, quickly digging through all it’s contents.

 

Jean grunts up at Marco. “What the spawn are pain killers?”

 

“They’re pills - little capsules filled with medicines that ‘kill pain’.” He answers as Eren hands him a white container labeled “Aspirin”. “Here, Jean. You’ll have to swallow two with some water. Eren, could you get a bottle?”

 

As Eren gets up, knees cracking from kneeling for so long, and rushes below deck to retrieve a bottled water, Marco helps Jean slowly turn onto his side so as to take the pills. Jean snatches the little white tablets from Marco’s hand when he tries to feed them to him, grumbling that he can do it himself. Eren returns, and opens the plastic bottle for Jean. He takes the pills down with a few gulps of water, then lowers himself back onto his stomach.

 

Jean sighs, and mutters. “This whole thing is a disaster…”

 

“No, Jean, it was just an accident. A fixable accident.” Eren sternly tells him. Jean doesn’t look at him, but Eren knows he’s listening. “You’ll get better.”

 

They all go back to being quiet, the only noises being the far-off talking of the few people on the beach and the light lapping of waves at the side of the boat. A few seabirds call out as they fly in and around the trees atop the rocky cove cliffs, adding to the island’s tropical nightlife.

 

Jean closes his eyes and listens, trying to at least get some rest out of the situation. Marco gets up to fill yet another bucket of ocean water, and they go back to their sponging routine for the next ten or so minutes.

 

Soon, they hear footsteps coming closer on the dock, and Marco leans back to see if it’s Armin. He grins. “You got them!”

 

Armin climbs back onto the boat, and rounds over to where Eren, Marco, and Jean are, the latter now with his eyes open.

 

Armin holds up the two rolls of waterproof bandages. “Got ‘em.”

 

Eren leans up and snatches one immediately, then starts gently, but speedily unwrapping Jean’s bloodied bandages. “These will allow you to go in the water with ‘em on,” He tells the merman. “Then we’ll teach you how to put ‘em on yourself.”

 

The last strip of bandage falls from Jean’s back as he grumbles lowly, “I could just swim up to you guys…” Jean’s large gash and torn flesh is now bared to the cool night air, still fresh, and he winces slightly but suppresses it.

 

Armin kneels down next to them as Eren asks Marco to find the antibiotic ointments in the med kit. He takes a bottle, opens it, and pours some on some cotton swabs so he can clean out the wound again.

 

“Let’s do it properly this time,” Armin murmurs. “Check to make sure there’s no eel teeth in there.”

 

Marco leans closer to inspect Jean’s shoulder, who’s squirming again since his tender flesh open to the elements. The coppery stench of blood is strong, and it makes Marco wrinkle his nose, but it’s thankfully stopped bleeding so he roves over the wound with his eyes before concluding there are no eel teeth embedded within.

 

“Okay, good.” Armin says. “Jean, we’re gonna put antibiotics on it now, alright?”

 

Jean huffs. “I don’t spawning know what that is but go ahead.”

 

Eren and Armin start dabbing the cotton swabs over his cut, properly cleaning and treating his shoulder. Jean grits his teeth as they do this, then sighs when they finish and reach for the rolls of waterproof bandages. Once again, they wrap it around his front and back and under his left arm until his lacerations are covered.

 

They lay him back down, on the boat. Armin yawns, and Marco murmurs, “You’ll have to sleep under the boat tonight, or at least really close by so no one will see you. Do you think you can swim?”

 

Jean nods. “Thanks…” He whispers. They’re all getting tired; it’s late.

 

With that, Marco picks Jean up again, and carries him over to the ledge on the stern. He squats down and gently lets Jean slip from his arms into the water with a _sploosh!_ He doesn’t resurface, and Marco doesn’t blame him as he tiredly rubs his eye with a fist.

 

They’ll figure out what to do in the morning.

 

X

 

Across the ocean, deep in the middle of the Atlantic, a figure flashes past coral outcroppings and sea caverns, through forests of tall seaweed and outswimming any predator that tries to hunt it. It’s much faster than any of them, and smarter too. It’s not new to the way things work in this aquatic world - and it’s on a mission.

 

It had only been out on a hunt like normal when a particularly enticing smell drifted in it’s direction. It was clearly the blood of a wounded sea creature. It analyzed the scent of the blood even further to try and identify it’s owner, sniffing at the water.

 

A shark… a Mako shark… a mershark…

 

_Wait._

 

It recognized the owner of this blood, and immediately sought out to follow the trail. The source of the blood - the mershark - had obviously lost quite a bit of blood through some sort of violent endeavor, possibly a fight or an attack, so there was no doubt that the creature currently tracking down the bloody scent wasn’t the only one being attracted to the source. It was determined to get there before anyone or anything else could, so it feverously and relentlessly swam after the scented trail of blood in the water.

 

No one else could make it to the mershark before it did.

 

X

 

It was eleven in the afternoon when Armin, Eren, and Marco finally woke up. Even Eren was grumbling as he pulled himself into a fresh pair of shorts and an annoyingly bright pink tank top. Armin and Marco were in more modest and less eye-catching navy blue and black tops.

 

Some other sail boats down the docks have left during their time asleep, leaving some open spots, and the beach is five times more populated than last night. Kids from the hotel are shrieking happily as they run through the waves, as parents and adults laze under their colorful umbrellas with a relaxed but watchful gaze. Some even have books or are on phones, which Marco and Eren silently judge them on.

 

Armin decides it’s his turn to wake up Jean, reminding the other two how crucial it is that Jean either gets on or stays by the ledge unseen. They’re far away from the crowd of people, but there’s always some risk that there’s the one hawk-eyed person on shore who’s bored out of their mind and looking for something to focus on.

 

Changing into the skin-tight scuba-diving suit and adjusting his goggles, Armin makes a show for Eren of properly checking all his equipment before falling backwards instead of just recklessly going in. Eren rolls his eyes with a scoff and threatens to push the other into the ocean.

 

Once Armin’s actually under the water, he checks in the shallow water underneath their boat and finds no Jean anywhere in the soft yellow sand. He kicks his flippers, and tries the side of the rocky cove they’re closest to, knowing Jean likes sleeping somewhere safely secluded rather than out in the open.

 

Sure enough, there are plenty of openings and tunnels among the brown-gray rocks with plenty of docile little fish flitting through. This close to land and humans, only the least-threatening fish dare to come close, so the threat of eels are virtually none in this area. Armin swims around the giant wall of rocks, looking for some indication of which one Jean could be sleeping in.

 

Eventually, he sees a wider opening in which none of the fish around it are venturing inside. Armin sees a bit of dark blue inside the tunnel as well, so he swims up toward it, confident in having found Jean.

 

He’s much gentler in waking the merman up than Jean was, and notices that Jean didn’t curl up this time, probably due to his shoulder.

 

They swim out of the tunnel and away from the rocky side of the cove towards the boat where they can see the warped forms of Eren and Marco waiting above the water. Both of their expressions were grim. Jean didn’t ask of it when Marco helps him climb onto the boat, now that his shoulder hinders his upper body movements.

 

They silently went about changing Jean’s bandages, murmuring every now and then about it’s starting to heal and other medical mumbo jumbo that Jean didn’t give two spawns about. When he was wrapped once again in new bandages, the three of them sat back as a sailboat pulls out of the dock and goes by. The sailor at the wheel barely spares them a glance.

 

Armin sighs. “Well, time to get down to business.” He gets into a more comfortable sitting position, as do Eren and Marco around Jean as said merman stays on his stomach with his head resting over his crossed forearms.

 

Marco starts, “We’ll be leaving in-”

 

“Two days,” Jean finishes. “I know.”

 

Marco nods sadly. “We’ve been thinking… we think your shoulder will take about two weeks to heal, and your movement’s already kinda limited because of it, so hunting will be even tougher than before.”

 

Jean nods, following along. Eren picks up where Marco left off, but in a much less sorrowful tone. Rather, a light and playful one. “So, since we care _so much_ about your wellbeing, we think you should swim up to Massachusetts when we leave here and hang out with us there!”

 

Marco and Armin’s expressions turn hopeful, as they look and Jean who looks about ready to slap someone. “I literally suggested that yesterday! Of course I’ll do it, but I get _all_ the credit for that idea, that was mine- oof!”

 

The wind gets knocked out of Jean when Eren tackles him in a hug, laughing all the way. Jean hisses, “Eren, Eren, my shoulder! Shoulder! Eren!”

 

Eren is still giggling as he gets off the protesting merman, muttering a ‘sorry’ that doesn’t sound very sorry. Armin lightly hits Eren’s head. Jean turns onto his side, and snaps, “But we’ve still got two days until we gotta leave, so stop it with the depressed look, Marco!”

 

Marco snickers, his sunny expression back to stay. Armin stands up and grins down at the three of them. “To celebrate this momentous occasion,” He proclaims in a playful “kingly” voice, “I propose breakfast!”

 

Marco and Eren played along and cheered for the “King’s” decree, and Jean rolled his eyes but smiled nonetheless at their antics.

 

X  


The source of the blood was close, the creature could smell it. It was lucky it had been so nearby in the first place, thirty-six miles was an easy one-day swim. Now hopefully, nothing else had gotten their grabby hands, claws, or flippers onto the mershark before it did, otherwise there would be trouble.

 

The sea creature stopped, all of a sudden. Crabs and little fish skittered over the soft sand underneath it as it took a deep inhale, trying to get a hold of all the different odors in the water.

 

Others had gotten to the mershark first… they smelled like… like… _humans_.

 

This was bad. Distressed, the creature shot off again, even more determined that before to get to the bleeding mershark.

 

X

 

After the four of them had breakfast (tropical fish for Jean and cereal for Marco, Eren and Armin), Marco had pointed out that even though Jean was injured, physical exercise would still be a good way to keep his health up, as long as he wasn’t over-exerting himself. The other two agreed with that notion, and Jean was happy to go along with it anyway as long as he got to be in the water.

 

So now, the four of them were simply swimming around in the water near the cove, out of sight from the beach and hotel but still close to the island and their boat. They all kept watchful eyes out for eels and other threats, though none were very likely to show considering how close to land, and therefore humans, they were.

 

Instead of hunting like normal, the four of them were only swimming around and enjoying themselves. Armin had bought an underwater before the trip, and was eagerly trying to get pictures of plants and fish near the cove’s rocky surface. Much to his dismay, Eren was futilely chasing after the little fish which scared them from Armin’s camera view. At first, the fish hid in fear of the beast that was Eren, but eventually they got somewhat cheeky and would swim in circles around him, being that they could easily maneuver away from his grasping hands.

 

Marco was laying on a sand bed nearby, blabbing on about his homelife in Massachusetts to Jean who was floating above and listening attentively. The freckled man told Jean about his little sister, explained how college and the education system worked (read: complained about how Finland’s system was ten times better), and encouraging Jean to actually lay down and rest with him in the sand after a while.

 

Sighing grumpily, Jean begrudgingly landed in the sand in front of Marco. Marco smiled and said, “I know it’s frustrating, not being able to swim normally, but overworking yourself isn’t gonna help at all.”

 

He spoke gently, as Jean firmly swished the end of his tail to dislodge the few fish that had curiously swam out to inspect it, then reached a healthier-looking arm back to scratch at his bandaging. Marco stayed quiet, watching him for a few seconds, before speaking again.

 

“Tell me more about life underwater. The mer-world?”

 

Jean snorted when he said “Mer-world” but turned his focus on him, smiling. “ ‘Mer-world’ … well, I don’t know, where do I start?”

 

Marco shifted his position a little, planting an elbow in the sand so he could rest his cheek on his hand. “As early as you can remember.”

 

Jean gathered his thoughts for a few moments. Overheard, some fish flew by, closely followed by Eren, who was being pursued by Armin. Jean started, “I guess my earliest memories are just me with my mom, really. I think I was born near Bermuda - probably why I keep coming back to this area,” He laughed a little.

 

“Ahh… I was her only pup, so all her attention was on me all the time. Normally, our kind has three or four in a litter so I was an exception.”

 

Marco listening intently, finding every word Jean said to be incredibly interesting. Armin’s attention had started drifting away from Eren and the fishes to were Jean is telling Marco of his life under the ocean.

 

“Like I said before, a pup stays with it’s mom or dad, or both, until they’re big enough to survive on their own. So my mom was the one who taught me how to hunt and stuff.”

 

Armin settled down next to Marco, crossing his legs in the sand. Eren noticed that Armin’s attention was no longer on him and looked over to see what had happened. He saw the other two listening to Jean, and swam toward them.

 

“I don’t know anything about my dad. She never talked about him, and when I asked she’d change the subject so I stopped all together.”

 

Jean looked up for a few seconds, thinking about what he should say next. “I don’t really know how old I was when I left her, just that I was old enough, and I haven’t really visited her since.” He got quieter near the end of his sentence, but switched his tone when he spoke again. “I met Hitch and Marlowe-”

 

“Who’re Hitch and Marlowe?” Eren cut in.

 

“Friends of mine… sorta.”

 

Armin leaned closer to inquire, “What kind of mer creatures are they?”

 

Jean smiled. “Sand sharks. They’re mates - though neither of them want pups.” A sea turtle swam by leisurely, taking care to stay a safe distance away from the bigger creatures.

 

“Anyway,” Jean continued. “We’re called “scavengers”, meaning that we swim around the ocean and collect knick-knacks and things that humans drop into the ocean and sell them for food and stuff.”

 

“Because hunting is tough due to competition?” Marco guessed. Jean nodded in confirmation. “Yeah.”

 

Eren rolled onto his back to stare up at the warped image of the sky through the water. “Are there such things as mer shrimp?”

 

Jean groaned. “ _Oh_ yeah, they’re tiny and spawning _annoying_ ,” He scowled, while Eren, Armin, and Marco snickered at the mental image.

 

Marco stopped giggling to ask. “What about turtles?”

 

Jean made a face. “Not that _I’ve_ ever seen, that would look spawnin’ _weird_!”

 

Again, the three humans started laughing, and it was contagious enough to get a smile crawling it’s way onto Jean’s pale lips. Armin suddenly broke out with, “Wait, wait, what about jellyfish?”

 

“ _Oooooh_ ,” Eren said, turning back onto his stomach. “Jellyfish mermaids would look  _hella_ cool!”

 

“They look hella _dangerous_ , Eren.”

 

Armin, Marco, and Eren gasped. “So there _are_ jellyfish mermaids!” Eren cried, kicking up sand in his excitement. Armin started waving his hand to swirl the sand away from his face.

 

Jean nodded. “Yeah, but they’re human half is just like… jelly. The tentacles come out of the hip area, and hair too.”

 

Marco raised a curious eyebrow. “Their hair is poisonous tentacles? What about eyebrows and body hair?”

 

Eren grimaced at the thought, while Armin looked like he was cataloging every word Jean said (probably was).

 

“They don’t have eyebrows or body hair. It’s just jelly. I’ve seen a good number of them, but I have no idea how they function or live. They never talk, and they always have the same, stoic expression on. All of the ones I’ve come across have really long tentacle-hair stuff, so I think it might hurt to cut. They’re super weird.”

 

“Yet very interesting…” Armin said, looking thoughtful.

 

Eren flopped over again, this time on his side, earning a disgruntled noise from both Armin and Marco. “I wonder if blobfish mermaids exist.”

 

At that, Marco and Armin’s faces immediately turned to those of laughter, and didn’t stop. Eren beamed, proud of himself, while Jean looked to be attempting a very, very confused smile. “Wh… What’s a… _blobfish_?”

 

“It’s exactly what it sounds like,” Marco managed through his laughter.

 

Armin added, through fits of chuckles, “Pink, fat, and squishy!”

 

“A _blob_ fish!” Eren finished with a grin. Jean tried to hide his own giggles by looking down with a hand over his forehead, but his shaking shoulders gave it away. The four of them cackled mirthfully for a few moments at the shared mental image of a blobfish being a merperson, until Jean abruptly stopped laughing.

 

“W-what is it?” Marco asked, his giggles slowly dying down.

 

Jean’s nostrils flared as he tipped his head back to sniff at the water. “Something… something smells…”

 

He cut himself off by taking a deep inhale. All laughter had stopped now, as Eren, Armin, and Marco watched Jean with curiosity and mild concern if he sensed danger.

 

“What do you smell?” Armin prodded.

 

Jean pushed himself off the sandy floor with his good shoulder so that he was floating a few feet above them, and turned to face outward and into the deep blue. “It smells like another mershark… a… a Mako shark…”

 

Armin, Marco, and Eren followed Jean’s lead by leaving the soft ocean bed to tread water lightly while they looked intently at where Jean was facing, eyes searching for the source of the scent. “Does it smell like a threat?” Eren glowered dangerously, ready to fight if need be.

 

“No… not a threat…” Jean murmured, his eyes slipping closed. “More familiar… like… like…” He was getting frustrated. “I recognize the scent but I can’t pinpoint it-”

 

“Take your time,” Armin soothed.

 

Jean nodded, his eyes still closed, and inhaled deeply again, searching his memory for any trace of that scent. “It smells like… like…”

 

The three humans listened in anticipation. “Like…” Jean’s eyes suddenly snapped open and he gasped. “ _Mom_!!”

 

At that moment, Armin pointed out the figure of a merperson as Jean rushed forward at it before Eren and Marco could even blink. When the person swam out of the hazy waters and into the open and became clear to see, Jean launched himself out to meet them in a desperate hug, knocking the person back a little.

 

“Mom!” He cried, his voice echoing through the water.

 

Now, Armin, Marco, and Eren could clearly see her. Jean’s mom had darker hair than her son with streaks of gray in it, probably shoulder length and swirling around her head in the water. She was older as well; wrinkles were clear on her skin as well as smile lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her tail looked identical to Jean’s, only bigger and covered in scars. She looked very surprised that Jean had dashed out to meet her in a hug, but got ahold of herself and firmly wrapped her own arms around him in turn, crying, “My baby boy!”

 

Jean had his face buried into the crook of her neck, eyes closed, reveling in seeing his mother again after such a long time. Tail swishing rapidly in the water to show his great joy, Jean spoke hysterically, his words muffled by his mom’s neck. “It’s been so- so long! I’m sorry I didn’t visit- I just-”

 

“Shh… shh…” She cooed, moving a hand to rub his back, but faltered when she felt the bandages covering a large expanse of his left shoulder. She pulled back with some fighting from Jean to more clearly see the material wrapped around her son’s body. She looked at him with concern. “What’s this? What happened to you?”

 

Armin, Marco, and Eren had watched this exchange with varying emotions, mostly joy for Jean to finally be seeing his mother again, who he obviously valued a lot. When she pulled back to take a look at Jean’s bandages, they could see that she wasn’t wearing any sort of top cover-up or even a shell-bra that were so common in mermaid movies. It made sense that she wouldn’t, a top of any sort would only be a hindrance when swimming and had no real purpose. Merfolk probably weren’t a people who viewed the body as a shameful thing to hide.

 

Even still, Armin and Marco were born and raised in a culture in which the body was hilariously sexualized, and so they bowed their heads respectfully. Eren on the other hand, muttered under his breath. “Ew, saggy tits”

 

Marco whacked him in the back of the head. “ _Eren_!”

 

This got Jean’s mother’s attention, who sharply looked up from her son’s injury to the three humans in the water behind him. Her kind face vanished into a dangerous one of bared, triangular teeth and eyes narrowed to slits. “Are those the ones who did this to you?”

 

Jean blinked in surprise and tried to tell her _no_ , but she didn’t wait for an answer. She surged forward in the water, intentions of bloody murder clear in her eyes as Marco, Armin and Eren’s expressions dropped to those of terror.

 

“No, no, no wait!”

“We can explain!”

“ _Holy jumping Jesus on a breadstick what the fu-_ ”

 

Before she could reach them, Jean ignored his shoulder injury and wrapped his arms around his mother’s shark half just below her dorsal fin, slowing her to a stop by shouting, “MOM, NO!!”

 

She angrily turned around and tried to gently but firmly pry his wiry arms off of her. “What do you mean, “no”? Are these not the ones who harmed you?”

 

Jean snapped up at her, stubbornly keeping his grip tight. “No! They were the ones who helped me!”

 

She looked at him in suspicion, then over at Armin, Marco, and Eren, who by now bad backed all the way up to the coral cliffs on the outer portion of the cove. Jean’s mother looked back at her son. “Tell me what happened.”

 

“You have to promise not to hurt them.” Jean said sternly.

 

His mother was quiet a moment, spared the humans another look, then turned back to Jean and nodded. Jean let go of her, and hurried to explain the whole story from the beginning: how he was being chased by orcas and jumped into their boat and they made a deal to feed him in exchange for studying him. At this point in the story, Jean’s mother took a glance at his body, and saw that he did indeed look relatively more healthy and well fed. Armin, Marco, and Eren inched off the coral wall and timidly came closer the more Jean talked.

 

“Then the other day we were just going out to hunt like normal - and it was an accident, no one could’ve known - an eel bit me,” He referenced his shoulder. “And they,” Jean splayed his arm towards Armin, Marco, and Eren, who were now floating next to the two mersharks with nervous, bashful smiles. “Bandaged me up.” He finished.

 

All four boys looked at Jean’s mom expectantly. She crossed her arms and stared at each one in turn, then spoke slowly and icily. “What are you planning to do with the information you’ve gathered on my son?”

 

Armin said, “N-nothing, ma’am. We plan to keep it to ourselves.”

 

She nodded, satisfied with that answer. Then she turned to Jean. “And you trust them?” Jean nodded.

 

“Very well. Thank you for taking care of my son, he can be rather reckless, as you probably already know.” She smirked a little when Jean started sputtering in denial, earning some snickers from Armin, Marco, and Eren as their nerves started to calm down.

 

Eren blurted out, “I’m sorry, but I really have to ask… how the hell did you know Jean was here?”

 

“I’m his mother! I recognized the scent of his blood immediately, and knew he was in trouble.” She said like it was obvious.

 

Eren grinned, impressed. “That’s super fucking cool.”

 

She gave him a questioning look. “ “Fucking”? ”

 

Jean groaned with a blush while the other three started laughing again. “It… it means “spawning”, mom.”

 

X

 

After somewhat warming up to the humans, Jean’s mother had insisted on staying with him until he healed completely, and also because she simply wanted to see him again. After Armin, Marco, and Eren had quickly gone back up to the boat to refill their oxygen tanks, they came back down to all lay in the sand near the coral cliffs. Jean didn’t start complaining until his mother started telling his friends all the embarrassing childhood stories about him that he had tactfully avoided mentioning during the duration of their time together.

 

“He tried to imitate a sand shark for quite a while - do you remember, Jeanbo? He’d try to bury himself in the sand and wait for prey to come along so that he could jump out.”

 

“Did it work?” Marco asked with a chuckle. Jean’s mother shook her head, smiling. “He was adorably obvious and nothing would dare to go near him.”

 

Marco, Armin, and Eren laughed at Jean’s misery as he grumbled into his forearms - once again laying on his stomach - with a blush. His mother leaned over to ruffle his hair in the water.

 

“Well,” Armin started, settling down from his laughter. “I do have something of importance to tell you about Jean’s wound.”

 

Jean’s mother’s expression immediately became serious. “We predicted that it would take about two weeks for him to heal completely, and we’re leaving here in a few days-”

 

“Two days.” Eren clarifies.

 

“-two days, so we won’t be able to keep changing Jean’s bandages if we leave.”

 

Jean’s mother followed along as Armin explained how the bandages had to be changed and the wound cleaned about twice a day for the best possible recovery. Marco continued with, “So, we decided - before you got here - that Jean would swim up the coast to Massachusetts, which is where we live by the ocean, so we could visit him every weekend. He’d still need to learn to change the bandages on his own because we can’t be there every day, unfortunately.”

 

Jean’s mother nodded, listening to their words. She opened her mouth the speak upon realizing the four boys were waiting for her to say something. “Well, I must say you’ve thought this out well.” She paused, thinking. “I know your swimming is a little curbed due to your shoulder, yes Jean?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Taking a breath, she said, “I could swim with you up to… Massachusetts? Yes, and I’ll keep an eye on you when your friends are gone.”

 

Jean frowned. “Mom, I don’t need a babysitter-”

 

“Right, right, I’m sorry,” She grinned. “I’ll keep you company when your friends are gone. Better?”

 

Jean scratched the side of his head while Eren snickered. “I mean, I’m really, _really_ happy to see you again, but don’t hover over me, okay? I know I’m injured, but I’ll be fine! Really!”

 

His mother smiled cheekily. “Alright, alright. I’ll be in the area, hm Jeanbo?”

 

Her son grumbled again, but she could see his smile nonetheless. “You’re _embarrassing!_ ”

 

X

 

A month later, college is starting up again soon, a fact of which Armin is happy for and Eren is dreading. True to their word, they’ve visited Jean and his mother down in a secluded, rocky area of the beach every weekend since the trio left eh Bahamas, and Jean’s shoulder has healed up well with the faintest of pink scarring. If anything, he likes the scar because he can look like he’s been in a tough fight and won, which, in a sense, is true.

 

Since Jean’s all healed up, his mother has reluctantly come to take her leave again, but Jean promised to track down and visit her more often and bid her goodbye with a long, solid hug (and plenty of kisses over Jean’s face just to be motherly annoying and hear him screech).

 

Marco told Jean the weekend right before they went back to school that they wouldn’t be able to visit as much when winter set in because no one went to snowy beaches and it would raise suspicion, but to get out when they could. Jean proclaimed that he’d use the winter season to scavenge and make the trip back to the North Sea during that time, and promised to tell Hitch and Marlowe that the three humans had said “hi” (Marlowe was bound to flip out when he heard Jean had befriended three humans).

 

The next summer, they met up again, and fished plenty for Jean, caught up, and generally goofed off as most young adults do - human or mershark. This tradition continued for years to come, and no one but them knew. Be as it may, this adventure would stay between them as an experience to last a lifetime.

 

That is, until Eren’s sister Mikasa comes back from her trip abroad in Germany suddenly interested in marine biology, and Jean returns from the North Sea that winter talking non-stop about some dark-haired girl who had seen him and Hitch wrestling over a fish under a dock, but that’s a story for another time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Edit: You know, it would be nice of some of you could leave comments...)
> 
> Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're done! Whooooo
> 
> THANK YOU everybody who read, left kudos, and commented on this story of mine! I'm not exactly too confident on my ending there, so tell me all about things I could do better, little details you liked, etc.
> 
> I have plans for even more fanfictions in the future, so keep your eyes peeled! And again, thank you! :D


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